How does ethnoracial demography relate to public goods provision? Many studies find support for the hypothesis that diversity is related to inefficient outcomes by comparing diverse and homogeneous communities. We distinguish between homogeneity of dominant and disadvantaged groups and argue that it is often impossible to identify the effects of diversity due to its collinearity with the share of disadvantaged groups. To disentangle the effects of these variables, we study new data from Brazilian municipalities. While it is possible to interpret theprima facienegative correlation between diversity and public goods as supportive of the prominent “deficit” hypothesis, a closer analysis reveals that, in fact, more homogeneous Afro-descendant communities have lower provision. While we cannot rule out that diversity is consequential in other contexts, our results cast doubt on the reliability of previous findings related to the benefits of local ethnoracial homogeneity for public outcomes.
Why do communities with larger shares of ethnic and racial minorities have worse public goods provision? Many studies have emphasized the role of diversity in hindering public outcomes, but the question of causality remains elusive. The authors contribute to this debate by tracing the roots of both contemporary racial demography and public goods provision to the uneven historical expansion of the state. Focusing on new historical data from Brazil, the authors show that more remote municipalities with lower levels of state capacity in the past were more frequently selected by escaped slaves to serve as permanent settlements. Consequently, such municipalities have worse public services and larger shares of Afro-descendants today. These results highlight the pervasive endogeneity of the relationship between ethnic demography and public outcomes. The failure to account for context-dependent historical confounders raises concerns about the validity of previous findings regarding the social costs and benefits of any particular demographic composition.
Why do communities with larger shares of ethnic and racial minorities have worse public outcomes such as service provision? Many studies emphasize the role of diversity and other demographic variables, but the question of causality remains underexplored. We contribute to this debate by tracing the roots of contemporary racial demography and public goods provision to the uneven historical expansion of the state in Brazil. We show more remote municipalities with lower levels of state capacity in the past were more frequently selected by escaped slaves to serve as permanent settlements. Consequently, such municipalities have worse public services and larger shares of Afro-descendants today. These results indicate pervasive endogeneity of ethnic demography and public outcomes, which are both influenced by state development. Failure to account for this and other context-dependent historical confounders raises concerns over the validity of previous findings regarding the social costs and benefits of any particular demographic composition.
Why do communities with larger shares of ethnic and racial minorities have worse public outcomes such as service provision? Many studies emphasize the role of diversity and other demographic variables, but the question of causality remains underexplored. We contribute to this debate by tracing the roots of contemporary racial demography and public goods provision to the uneven historical expansion of the state in Brazil. We show more remote municipalities with lower levels of state capacity in the past were more frequently selected by escaped slaves to serve as permanent settlements. Consequently, such municipalities have worse public services and larger shares of Afro-descendants today. These results indicate pervasive endogeneity of ethnic demography and public outcomes, which are both influenced by state development. Failure to account for this and other context-dependent historical confounders raises concerns over the validity of previous findings regarding the social costs and benefits of any particular demographic composition. * The authors names appear in alphabetical order. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the APSA, MPSA, and SPSA annual meetings, as well as Yale political economy seminar. We would like to thank our colleagues who have read and commented on previous drafts of this article. We are especially grateful to René Flores, Egor Lazarev, and Michael Touchton. All replication materials will be available at Harvard University's Dataverse.
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