3 May
2006
3 May
'06
5:02 p.m.
Ah, good, the contribution is much clearer. I think you could cut down
the middle bit somewhat, perhaps removing the sentence that begins with
"we demonstrate a tendency..." and saying simply, "To reconcile these
conflicting findings, we demonstrate that..." Also, you might want to
frame your contribution not as "We argue" but "we demonstrate," since
that's what ultimately matters in this context: what you can demonstrate
empirically. That's what you want to emphasize for the abstract.
Best,
Dan
On Wed, 3 May 2006, Suzanna Chapman wrote:
Title: Increasing Ethnic Diversity Hinders Economic Performance in US
Counties
In a recent paper, Alesina and La Ferrara (2005) present evidence that
wealth and democratic political institutions may temper or even reverse a
negative effect of ethnic diversity on economic performance. Yet, in
an analysis of US counties from 1970 to 2000, the authors find that
ethnic diversity has a negative effect on economic performance. To
reconcile these conflicting findings, we demonstrate a tendency in
current scholarship to make no distinction between a static, often
historical level of diversity within a region and a
changing level of diversity in a region over a brief period of
time. We argue that the effect of an \textit{increase} in ethnic
diversity have been underexplored because of our failure to
conceptualize it as a unique phenomenon, yet it is precisely this
question that is of substantive interest in wealthy democracies
facing increasing levels of international migration. We use a genetic
matching procedure to isolate the total effect of an \textit{increase}
in diversity on economic performance in US Counties, using three
measures of growth and income. Our results provide
resounding evidence that, at least in the short run, an increase in
ethnic diversity hinders economic performance of counties in the United
States.
On Tue, 2 May 2006, Gary King wrote:
see below...
On Tue, 2 May 2006, Dan Hopkins wrote:
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Nice job, we'll look forward to reading
this paper, and the description of
the method applied seems quite clear. In terms of recommendations...
The title poses a question but doesn't provide an answer--if possible,
tell us *how* diversity influences economic performance, whether for good
or ill. This impacts the first sentence as well: what kind of link has
past literature found, a positive one or a negative one? Second, I am not
sure of the scope of this past generalization at first--you might want to
mention that we are talking about US States somewhere before the final few
words of the abstract. Instead of "three measures of our dependent
variable," you might say "three measures of growth" or "economic
performance." Finally, it seems like your core contribution is to
disaggregate the effects of levels of diversity and changes in diversity,
but you might try to state that a little more clearly.
Best,
Dan
> The Dual-Effects of Diversity: How an Increase in Diversity Influences
> Economic Performance
titles should stand alone, and so if you mention dual effects those should be
indicated in the title. its not clear from the title at present what you're
talking about. also, see if you can avoid using the same word (diversity)
twice.
>
> In contrast to previous scholarship that links ethnic diversity and
> economic performance, we make an analytical distinction between an
> increase in ethnic diversity within a constant institutional context,
> and the effect of a static level of diversity across varying
> institutional contexts.
as written, this sounds mostly like a methodological distinction. do you mean
that ethnic diversity has different effects in different places? or the same
effect but it looks differently when compared to different things?
> Conceptualizing an increase in ethnic
diversity above a certain
> threshold as a treatment received by certain US counties from 1970 to
> 2000,
sounds like a methodological trick. why do this? i'd worry that people will
think its because you didn't get the result you wanted the other way? what
you could do is explain substnatively rather than methodologically why a
threshold (and which threshold) is important.
> we use a genetic matching procedure to
isolate the total effect of an
> increase in diversity on economic performance, using three measures of
> our dependent variable. Our results provide resounding evidence that an
> increase in ethnic diversity hinders economic performance in the United
> States.
seems like the concluding sentence is what this whole paper is about. should
it be in teh title?
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