Abstract
Ethnically diverse countries are more prone to conflict, but why do some groups engage in conflict while others do not? I show that civil conflict in Africa is explained by ethnic groups’ cultural distance to the central government: an increase in cultural distance, proxied by linguistic distance, increases an ethnicity’s propensity to fight over government power. To identify this effect, I leverage within-ethnicity variation in linguistic distance resulting from power transitions between ethnic groups over time. I provide evidence that the effects can be attributed to differences in preferences over both the allocation and the type of public goods.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1338-1368 |
| Number of pages | 31 |
| Journal | American Economic Review |
| Volume | 115 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2025 |
Bibliographical note
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