The Origins of Ethnolinguistic Diversity: Theory and Evidence

This research examines theoretically and empirically the economic origins of ethnolin-guistic diversity. The empirical analysis constructs detailed data on the distribution of land quality and elevation across contiguous regions, virtual and real countries, and shows that variation in elevation and land quality has contributed signi\u85cantly to the emergence and persistence of ethnic fractionalization. The empirical and historical evidence support the theoretical analysis, according to which heterogeneous land endowments generated re-gion speci\u85c human capital, limiting population mobility and leading to the formation of localized ethnicities and languages. The research contributes to the understanding of the emergence of ethnicities and their spatial distribution and o¤ers a distinction between the natural, geographically driven, versus the arti\u85cial, man-made, components of contempo-rary ethnic diversity