Citation:
Journal of Development Economics, 2012, v. 97, n. 2, pp. 322-338
ISSN:
0304-3878
DOI:
10.1016/j.jdeveco.2011.02.003
Sponsor:
Desmet gratefully
acknowledges financial support from the Comunidad de Madrid (PROCIUDAD-CM), and
the Spanish Ministry of Science (ECO2008-01300). Ortuño-Ortín gratefully acknowledges
financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science (ECO2010-19596).
Wacziarg gratefully acknowledges financial support from Stanford University's
Presidential Fund for Innovation in International Studies and from UCLA's Center for
International Business Education and Research
This paper uses a linguistic tree, describing the genealogical relationship between all 6912 world languages, to
compute measures of diversity at different levels of linguistic aggregation. By doing so, we let the data inform
us on which linguistic cleavagesThis paper uses a linguistic tree, describing the genealogical relationship between all 6912 world languages, to
compute measures of diversity at different levels of linguistic aggregation. By doing so, we let the data inform
us on which linguistic cleavages are most relevant for a range of political economy outcomes, rather than
making ad hoc choices. We find that deep cleavages, originating thousands of years ago, lead to better
predictors of civil conflict and redistribution. The opposite pattern emerges when it comes to the impact of
linguistic diversity on growth and public goods provision, where finer distinctions between languages matter[+][-]