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164 ALBERTO ALESINA ET AL.
models more directly. Thus, our data allows for a much more serious grounding of
empirical work in theoretical models. For example, in Section 5, we examine measures of
polarization, rather than fractionalization, since many models based on con¯ict suggest
that measures of polarization are more appropriate to capture the intensity of
disagreements across groups. Another novel feature is that our dataset contains group
names, so users can actually identify the groups. For example, Liberia, one of the most
ethnically fractionalized country in our sample, has 13 separate ethnic groups: the Kpelle
(18.3 percent), Bassa (13.3 percent), Dan (8.3 percent), Grebo (7.5 percent), Kru (7.3
percent), Ma (7.2 percent), Manding/Vai (7.0 percent), Loma (6.0 percent), Americo-
Liberians (5.0 percent), Krahn (4.7 percent), Gola (4.7 percent), Kissi (3.3 percent) and
Gbandi (3.0 percent). In contrast, one of the least fractionalized country in our sample
(South Korea) only displays two groups: Koreans (99.9 percent) and others (0.1 percent).
To give a sense of the possibilities offered by our new data, Table 4 presents statistics on
the number of available ethnic groups for different geographic areas. 13 Counting entries in
each country, our dataset has a total of 1,054 entries, corresponding to 650 distinct ethnic
groups. The average number of groups per country is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (7.61
groups per country), and lowest in Latin America (4.22). Sub-Saharan Africa only has one
country containing a group that represents more than 90 percent of the total population
(out of 44 countries) while 17 out of 28 industrialized countries (including countries in
Europe, North America, plus Japan, New Zealand, and Australia) display this
Table 4. Data description by ethnic group and by geographical area.
World
West
North
Africa/
Middle East
Latin
America/
Caribbean
Asia
Eastern
Europe/Former
Soviet Union
Sub-Saharan
Africa
No. of countries 190 28 19 34 38 27 44
Total (fraction) 0.15 0.10 0.18 0.20 0.14 0.23
No. of groups 1,054 132 83 146 183 175 335
Total (fraction) 0.13 0.08 0.14 0.17 0.17 0.32
Groups/country 5.55 4.71 4.37 4.29 4.82 6.48 7.61
Max. no. of groups 20 9 8 8 20 12 13
Min. no. of groups 1 2 2 2 1 3 2
Avg. pop share of 0.68 0.82 0.69 0.71 0.76 0.72 0.44
largest group
Avg. pop. Share of 0.16 0.09 0.19 0.18 0.14 0.15 0.19
2nd largest
No. of countries 141 25 16 27 34 25 14
with a group 50%
Countries with a 0.13 0.19 0.19 0.18 0.19 0.14 0.04
group 50%
No. countries with a 44 17 4 7 13 2 1
group 90%
Countries with a
group 90%
0.23 0.61 0.21 0.21 0.34 0.07 0.02
Note: West includes Australia, New Zealand and Japan, SSA includes Sudan. This table has the same
structure as Table 1 in Fearon (2002), to facilitate comparisons.