Replication data for: The Limited Local Impacts of Ethnic and Racial Diversity

The U.S. has more immigrants than at any time since the 1920s and immigration rates remain high. Past research unequivocally predicts that the resulting increase in ethnic and racial diversity will reduce local investments in public goods. By analyzing a new, comprehensive data set on U.S. cities from 1950 to 2002, this paper challenges those predictions. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the percent black had no strong impacts on local public goods. Since the 1970s, the impact of diversity has been limited chiefly to criminal justice, an issue that has remained racially coded, nationally salient, and relevant to localities. Contrary to past work, diversity’s influence on local public goods is neither pervasive nor consistent. These findings challenge static conceptions of local ethnic and racial divisions, and they suggest a connection between diversity’s local impacts and trends in national politics.

当前美国的移民规模已达1920年代以来的最高水平，移民占比仍维持高位。既往研究均明确预判，由此引发的族裔与种族多样性提升将减少地方公共品投入。本文通过分析1950年至2002年美国城市的全新综合数据集，对上述预判提出了挑战。1950年代及1960年代初期，黑人人口占比对地方公共品未产生显著影响。自1970年代起，多样性的影响主要局限于刑事司法领域——这一议题始终带有种族编码色彩，在全国范围内备受关注，且与地方事务息息相关。与既往研究结论相悖的是，族裔与种族多样性对地方公共品的影响既非普遍存在，也非始终如一。本研究结论挑战了关于地方族裔与种族分化的静态认知，同时表明多样性的地方影响与国家政治发展趋势之间存在关联。