DP5112 Peripheral Diversity and Redistribution
Author(s): | Klaus Desmet, Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín, Shlomo Weber |
Publication Date: | June 2005 |
Keyword(s): | linguistic diversity, polarization, redistribution |
JEL(s): | D60, D74, H50, Z10 |
Programme Areas: | Public Economics |
Link to this Page: | cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=5112 |
This paper investigates the effect of ethnolinguistic conflict on redistribution. The analysis focuses on the conflict arising between ?peripheral? minority groups and a dominant ?centre?. We propose an index of linguistic conflict that (i) encompasses both diversity and polarization, and (ii) accounts for the distance between languages. Our results suggest that linguistic diversity is a better predictor of redistribution than linguistic polarization. We also find that incorporating linguistic distances improves the predictive power of our conclusions.