Working Paper
The Political Economy of Intergroup Contact: Evidence from Malaysia (joint with Gedeon Lim, Danial Shariat, Abu Siddique, and Shunsuke Tsuda) [Submitted! New version]
Are there particular social structures that allow ethnic diversity to coexist with political stability and economic development? This paper examines the long-run effects of interethnic proximity using quasi-random variation from a colonial-era program that forcibly relocated over 500,000 ethnic minority Chinese into mono-ethnic villages across Malaysia. Ethnic majority Malays residing closer to these villages exhibit lower electoral support for the ethnonationalist coalition, potentially reflecting a moderation of political identity. We observe moderately positive impacts on local economic development. Political effects are stronger in regions with initial, historical interethnic complementarities--even without persistent economic prosperity. Malays report greater contact with Chinese, higher interethnic trust, and weaker zero-sum beliefs. Effects are stronger (reversed) in areas with interethnic complementarities (competition). Throughout, effects on social integration remain muted. These findings suggest that the nature of the underlying economic relationship can have a persistently important role in shaping the long-run effects of contact.
Previous Version: SSRN, SoDa Labotarories Working Paper Series, VoxDev
Publication
Gender and Religion: A Survey (joint with Sascha O. Becker and Jeanet Sinding Bentzen), Forthcoming at the Journal of Demographic Economics
Working Paper
The Visibility Premium: Article Order and Citations (joint with ⓡ Francesco Lippi and ⓡ Sascha O. Becker), Draft upon request
Inter-ethnic Proximity and Competition in Southeast Asia (joint with Gedeon Lim, Abu Siddique, and Shunsuke Tsuda)
Using Religion to Ensure Mental Health in Ghana (joint with Anthony Amoah, Prachi Jain, and Amma Panin), Designing pilot survey
Language, Nation-building, and Economic Development: Evidence from Indonesia (joint with Arya Gaduh and Gedeon Lim)