The latest scholarship from two professors in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business explores the relationship between the quality of country level property rights and three measures of diversity.
Professors of Economics Tina Das and Cassandra DiRienzo coauthored “International Property Rights: The Role of Diversity,” which appears in The Journal of Developing Areas.
The paper’s abstract reads:
Using the International Index of Property Rights, this study explores the relationship between the quality of country level property rights and three measures of diversity: ethnic, linguistic, and religious. Past studies have assumed a linear relationship between various measures of diversity and economic outcomes, including property rights. The assumption of a linear relationship suggests that the estimated effect of diversity on the outcome will be the same for any change in diversity, regardless of the level diversity within the country. It is argued that the effects of diversity can have diminishing marginal effects on the quality of property rights. By relaxing the assumption of linearity, this analysis contributes to the growing literature on property rights. These relationships are explored using a cross-country data set and the results suggest that ethnic diversity has a diminishing, negative effect on the quality of property rights, while linguistic diversity has a diminishing, positive effect.
The Journal of Developing Areas aims to stimulate in-depth and rigorous empirical and theoretical research on all issues pertaining to the process of economic development. It also intends to encourage research on economic, social, urban/regional and inner city problems of the United States and other developed countries.