Public good or public bad? Nation-building and Indigenous institutions

Elizalde, Aldo, Hidalgo, Eduardo, Salgado, Nayeli and Kampanelis, Sotiris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3248-9077 2026. Public good or public bad? Nation-building and Indigenous institutions. Journal of Development Economics 179 , 103652. 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103652

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Abstract

While existing evidence shows that nation-building policies unify societies, little is known about how and what makes some societal groups to resist them. We examine this in the context of the post-Mexican Revolution (1920s–1950s), when the new state implemented a nation-building policy to eliminate Indigenous cultures and identities by increasing connectivity via transport infrastructure. In a difference-in-differences design, we leverage heterogeneity in the exposure to pre-colonial political centralisation as a proxy for the ability of Indigenous populations in mobilising to resist national integration. We find that the expansion of transport infrastructure was lower in municipalities with a stronger efficacy of Indigenous mobilisation. We demonstrate that this underprovision of public goods can be partly explained by Indigenous identity preservation and high abilities for collective actions.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0304-3878
Date of Acceptance:	26 September 2025
Last Modified:	04 Nov 2025 14:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/182069

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