Empire, diversity & development: evidence from Afghan provinces

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the effects of historical and contemporary ethnolinguistic diversity on socio-economic development in Afghanistan. Using a dataset of Afghan provinces, we find that historical ethnolinguistic borders are strongly associated with income, provision of public goods, and political preferences in Afghanistan. Pashtun areas exhibit higher levels of income and public goods provision as well as political support for the incumbent. There has been a persistent rule of Pashtun leaders in Afghanistan during the last three centuries. Furthermore, we instrument measures of contemporary ethnolinguistic diversity by the diversity of archaeological sites that belong to different ancient and medieval empires. We argue that higher levels of contemporary diversity are likely to induce lower levels of conflict, higher levels of income and trust, and lower levels of individualism.