Is it Ethnic Fractionalization or Social Exclusion, Which Affects Social Cohesion?
The theory about missing links of economic growth often lags behind the empirical estimations of such links. A consensus has emerged that ethnic fractionalization has a negative impact on growth, also when controlled for income inequality. Often, although implicitly, the assumed channel is social cohesion. We analyse the effect of fractionalization on social cohesion with a different inequality measure, namely a social measure of inequality: the Inclusion of Minorities Index. Our results indicate that it issocial exclusion, which reduces social cohesion, rather thandiversity as such. We conclude that future studies of social cohesion and its relation to growth may benefit from using measures of social exclusion next to ethnic diversity.
Economics of Development and Emerging Markets, Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT The Hague, The Netherlands.
Irene
I
van Staveren
Department of Economics, National College of Business Administration and Economics (NCBA&E), Lahore, Pakistan.
Zahid
Z
Pervaiz
Cross-country analysis; Developing countries; Economic growth; Ethnic fractionalization; Minorities; Social cohesion; Social exclusion