Culture, Contiguity and Conflict: On the Measurement of Ethnolinguistic Effects in Spatial Spillovers
提出一种测量国家间民族语言亲缘关系的新指数，并用于非洲数据，发现内战更可能在相邻且民族语言相似的国家间扩散。
Abstract Research on ethnolinguistic heterogeneity has so far mostly focused on domestic measures, while little attention has been paid to ethnolinguistic relations between nations. In this paper, I propose a way of measuring ethnolinguistic affinity between nations. This index measures the degree of similarity two randomly drawn individuals from two different populations are expected to display. I show that this measure has several attractive theoretical characteristics, which make it particularly useful. Subsequently, I construct the measure for all countries in Africa and use it to show that civil conflict in Africa is likely to spill over between contiguous ethnolinguistically similar countries.