Open AccessPosted Content
Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, the authors present a model that links heterogeneity of preferences across ethnic groups in a city to the amount and type of public goods the city supplies, and conclude that ethnic conflict is an important determinant of local public finances.Abstract:
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.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Ethnic Diversity and Preferences for Redistribution
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors exploit a nationwide program placing refugees in municipalities throughout Sweden during the period 1985-94 to isolate exogenous variation in immigrant shares and find that a larger immigrant population leads to less support for redistribution in the form of preferred social benefit levels.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social institutions, corporate governance and firm-performance in the MENA region
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the impact of social institutions, firm-specific corporate governance and ownership characteristics on firm performance in the MENA countries and found that the relationship between governance and firm performance depends on the measurement used for firm performance.
Posted Content
Tenure, Diversity, and Commitment: Community Participation for Urban Service Provision
TL;DR: Lall et al. as discussed by the authors used household level survey data for Bangalore, India, to show that tenure security has a significant impact on the willingness of residents to participate even when neighborhoods are diverse in terms of their cultural background and welfare status.
Posted Content
Globalization and political geography
Federico Etro,Federico Etro +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors study a model of geopolitical organization endogenizing the size of nations, of their public spending and of their degree of openness, and show that the optimal geography may not be a stable equilibrium and the Alesina-Spolaore bias toward too many nations tends to be confirmed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Short Changed The Importance of Facilitating Equitable Financial Education in Urban Society
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore financial education's relevance to urban society and consider research measuring children's financial development by observing environmental in-troducts, such as water and air pollution.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures
TL;DR: The authors show that the Musgrave-Samuelson analysis, which is valid for federal expenditures, need not apply to local expenditures, and restate the assumptions made by Musgrave and Samuelson and the central problems with which they deal.
Journal ArticleDOI
The truly disadvantaged : the inner city, the underclass, and public policy
TL;DR: Wilson's "The Truly Disadvantaged" as mentioned in this paper was one of the sixteen best books of 1987 and won the 1988 C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions
William Easterly,Ross Levine +1 more
TL;DR: This article showed that ethnic diversity helps explain cross-country differences in public policies and other economic indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa, and that high ethnic fragmentation explains a significant part of most of these characteristics.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Rational Theory of the Size of Government
Allan H Meltzer,Scott F. Richard +1 more
TL;DR: In a general equilibrium model of a labor economy, the size of government, measured by the share of income redistributed, is determined by majority rule as mentioned in this paper, where voters rationally anticipate the disincentive effects of taxation on the labor-leisure choices of their fellow citizens and take the effect into account when voting.