Fragmented Tongues, Unequal States: Linguistic Diversity and Public Goods Provision in India

Diversity has long been thought to influence growth at the cross-national level; however, there is limited evidence examining the relationship between linguistic diversity, economic growth, and public goods provision at the subnational level in India. This thesis examines whether linguistic fractionalization influences economic growth and public goods provision across Indian states. I construct a panel dataset of Indian states combining Census language data (2001, 2011), state-level GDP, and expenditure data on education and health from 2011 to 2019. Using OLS and state fixed-effects models, I estimate the relationship between linguistic diversity and growth while controlling for urbanization, coastal access, and initial income. The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) there is no correlation between diversity and growth at the state level; (2) diversity is positively associated with state-level spending on education and healthcare; (3) healthcare spending is not associated with per capita growth; and (4) the positive association between education spending and growth disappears when controlling for state and year fixed effects.