SGER: Ethnic Diversity, Social Capital, and Public Goods in East Africa

本探索性研究试图通过原始数据收集、微观计量分析和形式理论，对发展的政治经济学文献做出至少三方面的贡献。首先，研究估算了肯尼亚和坦桑尼亚两国种族多样性对当地公共产品供给的影响。目前正在收集有关当地公共产品的数据，包括学校资金、水井维护和社区参与村会议。由此产生的数据集提供了在各种环境和结果中种族划分对公共产品提供的影响的信息。初步实证结果表明，在肯尼亚90所农村小学中，较高的当地种族多样性与当地资金大幅减少和设施较差有关。从完全的种族同质性到中等学校种族多样性的变化所带来的资金下降约占当地学校平均资金的25%，这种关系与地理、社会经济、人口和教师质量控制的纳入密切相关。种族多元化地区的社区参与学校委员会会议的比例也较低，肯尼亚西部农村地区的水井维护状况也差得多。其次，该研究通过比较两个邻近农村地区（一个在肯尼亚西部，一个在坦桑尼亚西部）的结果，考察了中央政府的种族政策是如何影响民族间关系和公共产品供应的。尽管肯尼亚和坦桑尼亚拥有共同的地理、历史和殖民遗产，但两国的中央政府自独立以来一直奉行截然不同的民族政策。最后，本研究探讨了坦桑尼亚最近的地方政府权力下放改革对当地公共产品结果的影响，该改革在各个村庄逐步推行。本项目收集的独特数据集允许作者检验分权改革改善公共产品结果的假设，并探讨由于地方集体行动失败，这种改革在种族多样化地区是否效果较差。鉴于许多非洲国家和其他欠发达国家目前正在走向权力下放，了解权力下放对不同社区的影响具有重要的政策意义。坦桑尼亚的实地数据收集工作是与一个有能力的当地非政府组织合作进行的，该组织拥有训练有素的实地研究工作人员和数据输入小组。作者自1995年以来一直参与东非的实地数据收集项目。

This exploratory research attempts to make at least three contributions to the literature on the political economy of development, using original data collection, microeconometric analysis, and formal theory. First, the research estimates the impact of ethnic diversity on local public goods provision in two countries, Kenya and Tanzania. Data is being collected on local public goods, including school funding, maintenance of wells, and community participation in village meetings. The resulting dataset provides information on the impact of ethnic divisions on public good provision across a variety of settings and outcomes. Preliminary empirical results indicate that higher local ethnic diversity is associated with sharply lower local funding and worse facilities across ninety rural Kenyan primary schools. The drop in funding associated with the change from complete ethnic homogeneity to median school ethnic diversity is approximately 25 percent of average local school funding, and this relationship is robust to the inclusion of geographic, socioeconomic, demographic and teacher quality controls. Ethnically diverse areas also have lower community participation in school committee meetings, as well as substantially worse water well maintenance in rural western Kenya.Second, the research examines how central government policies toward ethnicity affect inter-ethnic relations and public goods provision, by comparing outcomes across two nearby rural districts: one in western Kenya and one in western Tanzania. Despite their shared geography, history, and colonial legacy, central governments in Kenya and Tanzania have followed radically different ethnic policies since independence.Finally, the research explores the impact of a recent local government decentralization reform in Tanzania - which was gradually phased-in across villages - on local public good outcomes. The unique dataset collected in this project allows the author to test the hypothesis that decentralization reforms improve public good outcomes, and to explore whether such reforms are less effective in ethnically diverse areas due to local collective action failures. Understanding the impacts of decentralization in diverse communities has important policy implications given the current movement toward decentralization in many African and other less developed countries.The field data collection in Tanzania is being conducted in collaboration with a capable local non-governmental organization that has a well-trained research field staff and data entry group. The author has been involved in field data collection projects in East Africa since 1995.