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Ethnolinguistic diversity and urban agglomeration

Author

Listed:
  • Ulrich J. Eberle

    (Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London WC2A2AE, United Kingdom; Department of Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC Lausanne), University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland)

  • J. Vernon Henderson

    (Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London WC2A2AE, United Kingdom)

  • Dominic Rohner

    (Department of Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC Lausanne), University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland)

  • Kurt Schmidheiny

    (Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Basel, 4002 Basel, Switzerland)

Abstract

This article shows that higher ethnolinguistic diversity is associated with a greater risk of social tensions and conflict, which, in turn, is a dispersion force lowering urbanization and the incentives to move to big cities. We construct a worldwide dataset at a fine-grained level on urban settlement patterns and ethnolinguistic population composition. For 3,540 provinces of 170 countries, we find that increased ethnolinguistic fractionalization and polarization are associated with lower urbanization and an increased role for secondary cities relative to the primate city of a province. These striking associations are quantitatively important and robust to various changes in variables and specifications. We find that democratic institutions affect the impact of ethnolinguistic diversity on urbanization patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Ulrich J. Eberle & J. Vernon Henderson & Dominic Rohner & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2020. "Ethnolinguistic diversity and urban agglomeration," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(28), pages 16250-16257, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:16250-16257
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    Cited by:

    1. Seidel, André, 2023. "A global map of amenities: Public goods, ethnic divisions and decentralization," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    2. Richard Bluhm & Christian Lessmann & Paul Schaudt, 2021. "The Political Geography of Cities," SoDa Laboratories Working Paper Series 2021-11, Monash University, SoDa Laboratories.

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