Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions / Alberto Alesina, Reza Baqir, William Easterly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alesina, Alberto.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Baqir, Reza.

Easterly, William.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w6009.

NBER working paper series no. w6009

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public goods--Mathematical models.

Public goods.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1997.

Cambridge, Mass. : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1997.

Summary:

We present a model that links heterogeneity of preferences across ethnic groups in a city to the amount and type of public good the city supplies. We test the implications of the model with three related datasets: US cities, US metropolitan areas, and US urban counties. Results show that productive public goods -- education, roads, libraries, sewers and trash pickup -- in US cities (metro areas/urban counties) are inversely related to the city's (metro area's/county's) ethnic fragmentation, even after controlling for other socioeconomic and demographic determinants. Ethnic fragmentation is negatively related to the share of local spending on welfare. The results are mainly driven by observations in which majority whites are reacting to varying sizes of minority groups. We conclude that ethnic conflict is an important determinant of local public finances.

Notes:

Print version record

April 1997.

Includes bibliographical references.