A Generalized Index of Fractionalization


Autoria(s): Bossert, Walter; D'Ambrosio, Conchita; LA FERRARA, Eliana
Data(s)

14/03/2008

14/03/2008

01/01/2008

Resumo

The goal of this paper is to contribute to the economic literature on ethnic and cultural diversity by proposing a new index that is informationally richer and more flexible than the commonly used ‘ethno-linguistic fractionalization’ (ELF) index. We characterize a measure of diversity among individuals that takes as a primitive the individuals, as opposed to ethnic groups, and uses information on the extent of similarity among them. Compared to existing indices, our measure does not require that individuals are pre-assigned to exogenously determined categories or groups. We show that our generalized index is a natural extension of ELF and is also simple to compute. We also provide an empirical illustration of how our index can be operationalized and what difference it makes as compared to the standard ELF index. This application pertains to the pattern of fractionalization in the United States.

Formato

830580 bytes

application/pdf

Identificador

http://hdl.handle.net/1866/2214

Idioma(s)

en

Publicador

Université de Montréal, Département de sciences économiques

Relação

Cahier de recherche #2008-01

Palavras-Chave #Diversity #Similarity #Ethno-Linguistic Fractionalization #C43 #D63
Tipo

Article