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Does Multiculturalism Pay? Empirical Evidence from the United States and Canada
Author(s) -
Ratzmun N.,
Grafton Quentin,
MacDonald Ian A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
economic papers: a journal of applied economics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1759-3441
pISSN - 0812-0439
DOI - 10.1111/1759-3441.12003
Subject(s) - diversity (politics) , multiculturalism , per capita , cultural diversity , gross domestic product , ordinary least squares , linguistic diversity , empirical evidence , economics , demographic economics , political science , development economics , sociology , economic growth , demography , econometrics , law , linguistics , population , philosophy , epistemology
We investigate the economic impacts of social diversity and the consequent barriers of communication in Canada and the United States. Social diversity is explained by linguistic, cultural and religious differences across the 48 contiguous states in the United States and the 10 provinces in Canada. The ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrumental variables estimation show that social diversity increases per capita gross domestic product at the state and province level, but the positive economic pay‐off from diversity diminishes as the level of fluency in official language declines. The empirical results provide an important economic rationale for overcoming linguistic divisions and “inclusive” multiculturalism in other pluralistic countries, such as Australia.