Ethnic diversity and economic development

This paper analyzes the role that different indices and dimensions of ethnicity play in the process of economic development. Firstly, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of alternative data sources for the construction of indices of religious and ethnic heterogeneity. Secondly, we compare the index of fractionalization and the index of polarization. We argue that an index of the family of discrete polarization measures is the adequate indicator to measure potential conflict. We find that ethnic (religious) polarization has a large and negative effect on economic development through the reduction of investment and the increase of government consumption and the probability of a civil conflict. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.