2 May
2006
2 May
'06
3:21 a.m.
see below...
On Tue, 2 May 2006, Dan Hopkins wrote:
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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