#  Shanon Hsuan-Ming Hsu (Alesina Seminar) 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **September 4, 2025** 

 04:30PM - 05:45PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS Knafel room K354**  



 

 



 

## Speaker & Title

Shanon Hsuan-Ming Hsu, "Coercive Growth: Forced Resettlement and Ethnicity-Based Agglomeration"

## Abstract

While the clustering of people can raise productivity through social interactions, social divisions such as ethnic segregation and tension may limit these benefits. I study how such divisions shape the gains from agglomeration, leveraging an ethnic-based resettlement program in 1950s British Malaya that forcibly relocated 600,000 rural Chinese into villages across the country. I find that areas with higher resettlement remained more densely populated and had higher Chinese population shares decades later, driven by both the program's direct impact and subsequent internal migration. Moreover, these areas were wealthier and more industrialized, with greater labor market specialization. However, the economic benefits were concentrated among the Chinese population. Other ethnic groups saw only marginal gains when working outside agriculture, and evidence suggests that segregation and deeper cultural and linguistic barriers hindered cross-ethnic spillovers. To evaluate the aggregate impact of the program, I estimate a quantitative spatial model that allows agglomeration externalities to vary by sector and ethnic composition. While the resettlement raises total output, the economic gains are insufficient to offset the welfare losses from forced relocation.



 

Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.



 

 



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 See also:- [ Alesina Seminar on Political Economy ](/program/seminar-political-economy)
 
 

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