Over the last two decades there has been a growing debate on the supposedly negative relation between ethnic diversity, public goods production and social cohesion. Despite the amount of evidence, existing in-depth qualitative reviews conclude that the literature is inconclusive. Advancing upon...

Ethnic diversity is typically measured by the well-known Hirschman-Herfindahl Index. This paper discusses the merits of an alternative approach, which is in our view better suited to tease out why and how ethnic diversity matters. The approach consists of two elements. First, all existing...

The question whether ethnic diversity is associated with declining social cohesion has produced much controversy. We maintain that more attention must be paid to cognitive mechanisms to move the debate ahead. Using survey data from 938 localities in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, we...