Essays on the costs and benefits of ethnic diversity
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- It is widely believed amongst scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners that ethnic and cultural mixing can threaten social prosperity. When communities and societies are comprised of individuals from different ethnic backgrounds and cultural beliefs, they tend to fractionalize and fight along those differences, in the worst cases triggering horrific forms of human oppression and violence. However, there is growing evidence in the social and behavioral sciences that diversity, because it is generally associated with greater variety of useful skills and insights, improves economic productivity and performance at intellective tasks like problem-solving, decision-making, and prediction -- skills that are critical for building smart, prosperous, and robust societies. The tradeoffs imposed by diversity raise a number of questions of increasing practical importance in today's world of globalization and cultural integration. If diversity generates both costs and benefits, what explains when one of the two opposing forces dominate? What is the net impact of diversity on the rate of social, political, and economic progress? What kinds of public policies and interventions can enable multiethnic groups and societies to minimize the costs of diversity while simultaneously realizing its benefits? This dissertation develops answers to these questions in the form of three analytical essays, drawing on insights and research methodologies from a number of disciplines, including political science, economics, social psychology, and organizational behavior. Altogether the essays provide a theoretical and empirical foundation for adjudicating between competing theories about diversity's tradeoffs and strategies for managing them.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Jeon, Sangick |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science. |
| Primary advisor | Laitin, David D |
| Thesis advisor | Laitin, David D |
| Thesis advisor | Cohen, Joshua, 1951- |
| Thesis advisor | Jha, Saumitra |
| Advisor | Cohen, Joshua, 1951- |
| Advisor | Jha, Saumitra |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Sangick Jeon. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Sangick Jeon
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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