We thank Francesco Caselli and Jim Fearon for useful discussions. All errors remain ours. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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We provide new measures of ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization for about 190 countries. These measures are more comprehensive than those previously used in the economics literature and we compare our new variables with those previously used. We also revisit the question of the e¤ects of ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization on quality of institutions and growth. We partly con…rm and partly modify previous results. The patterns of cross-correlations between potential explanatory variables and their di¤erent degree of endogeneity makes it hard to make unquali…ed statements about competing explanations for economic growth and the quality of government.

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This book explores the difference in the distributive policies of the United States and Europe. It seeks answers to why Americans are less willing than Europeans to redistribute from the rich to the poor. It finds that redistribution is influenced by political institutions, ethnic heterogeneity, and beliefs about the nature of poverty.

to seminar participants at Harvard University (Saguaro Seminar, October 1998), Stanford University, and Ente Einuadi for very useful comments. We also thank Erzo Luttrner for sharing data and Spencer Glendon for help with data sources. This research is supported by an NSF grant to the NBER. We are grateful to both organizations for their support. Alesina also gratefully acknowledges financial support from the