Ethnic Favoritism: An Axiom of Politics?

Arbeitspapier

We investigate the prevalence and determinants of ethnic favoritism, i.e., preferential public policies targeted at the political leader's ethnic group. We construct a panel dataset of 2,022 ethnographic regions from 139 countries with annual observations from 1992 to 2012, and use nighttime light intensity as output measure to capture the distributive effects of a wide range of policies. We find robust evidence for ethnic favoritism: the political leaders' ethnographic regions enjoy 10% higher nighttime light intensity. We further find that ethnic favoritism is a global rather than Sub-Saharan African phenomenon, which is present in poor as well as rich countries; that political institutions have a weak effect on ethnic favoritism; that ethnic favoritism is most prevalent in ethnically fractionalized and segregated countries with long established polities; and that ethnic favoritism does not contribute to sustainable development.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 5209

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination ; Institutions and Growth
• Subject: ethnic favoritism ; political leaders ; institutions

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): De Luca, Giacomo ; Hodler, Roland ; Raschky, Paul A. ; Valsecchi, Michele
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2015

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/107380
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET