Working Paper
Interethnic Proximity, Complementarities, and Politics in Malaysia (joint with Gedeon Lim, Danial Shariat, Abu Siddique, and Shunsuke Tsuda)
We exploit a British colonial resettlement policy in Malaysia (1948-1951) - which forcibly relocated over half a million ethnic minority Chinese into segregated "Chinese New Villages" (CNVs) - along with fine-grained spatial variation to examine how persistent interethnic proximity affects the political identity of ethnic majority Malays and long-run economic development. Malays residing in polling districts closer to CNVs exhibit lower electoral support for the ruling ethno-nationalist coalition, potentially reflecting a moderation of ethno-nationalistic political identity. We also find significant impacts on contemporary local economic development. The political effects are stronger in regions with historical interethnic complementarities, indicating that initial economic interdependence has had lasting consequences. Novel, in-person, primary survey data further reveal that Malays living near CNVs report greater contact with Chinese minorities, higher trust, weaker zero-sum mindsets, and higher income and wealth. These findings suggest that persistent intergroup contact and economic complementarities can jointly underpin political moderation and local development.
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
First Things First: Rank Order and Citations (joint with Sascha O. Becker and Francesco Lippi), Draft coming soon
The Economic Consequences of Private Colonialism: Evidence from British Malaya (joint with Kaveendra Vasuthevan), Draft coming soon
Forged in Uniform: Napoleonic Conscription and the Foundations of the Italian State (joint with Marco Lecci)
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)