Working Paper
Interethnic Proximity and Political Development (joint with Gedeon Lim, Danial Shariat, Abu Siddique, and Shunsuke Tsuda)
We exploit a population resettlement program of ethnic minorities in Malaysia to identify long-run effects of interethnic proximity on economic and political development. From 1948 to 1951, the colonial government moved 500,000 rural Chinese into hundreds of isolated, mono-ethnic camps. In ethnic majority Malay communities adjacent to these camps, we find greater economic prosperity and lower vote shares for the ethno-nationalist Malay party. Effects are stronger in areas with historical, interethnic economic complementarities. Primary survey data suggests that trust-building and social integration were key channels. Our findings highlight the importance of persistent, localized contact in the co-evolution of economic and political development.
Previous Version: SSRN, SoDa Labotarories Working Paper Series, VoxDev
Work In Progress
Inter-ethnic Proximity and Competition in Southeast Asia (joint with Gedeon Lim, Abu Siddique, and Shunsuke Tsuda) [In the field]
Nation building is crucial for economic development. Doing so, however, is particularly challenging for ethnically diverse nation-states (Alesina and Zhuvarskaya 2011). In this project, we focus on one aspect -- the extent to which nation building efforts are shaped by (the lack of) macro-level contact across ethnic groups and the attendant, downstream impacts on inter-ethnic political and economic competition. A crucial problem is that individuals usually have a choice over where they live, and, by extension, whom they interact with. We circumvent this by studying a large-scale colonial resettlement program that created 550 mono-ethnic villages; many of which still exist today. Plausibly exogenous placement of these villages offers us persistent inter-village variation in ethnic proximity and contact. Using this variation, we study long-run effects on inter-ethnic competition and national identity. To do so, we have secured funding to conduct an original, large-scale, in-person, retrospective survey. The final survey will measure, amongst others, inter-ethnic contact rates and attitudes.
A Short Survey on Gender and Religion (joint with Sascha O. Becker and Jeanet Sinding Bentzen)
Planting Seeds of Knowledge? Rubber Estates and Human Capital Investment in British Malaya (joint with Kaveendra Vasuthevan) [Draft coming soon]
Language, Nation-building, and Economic Development: Evidence from Indonesia (joint with Arya Gaduh and Gedeon Lim)