Article · Public Choice

Do racist attitudes and behaviors impede economic growth? Cross-national and regional evidence

Chandan Kumar Jha, Swarup Joshi and Sujana Kabiraj September 1, 2025
Human capital & developmentInequality & disparities

Using World Values Survey data, this paper builds an indicator of racist behaviors that is significantly and negatively associated with cross-country economic growth, robust to geographic, institutional, and economic controls. A regional indicator of racist attitudes from the European Values Survey is likewise negatively associated with growth across subnational regions, even after country fixed effects.

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