Diverse teams are said to bring a number of benefits to our decision making processes.  New research from Rice University highlights just how profound these changes can be.

The study found that when district councils had more diverse representation, their spending on infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects changes considerably.

“Beginning in 1975, the courts sought to increase minority representation in city councils by forcing elections by district in jurisdictions with a history of voter discrimination,” the researchers say. “I was interested in determining the economic impact of this activity.”

Diverse investment

The researchers examined around 1,800 different cities that had elected their councils before 1975, and then monitored their spending between then and 2002.  The study found that councils formed via district elections typically raised non-infrastructure spending by 9.1% during this timeframe.

“The increase in non-infrastructure spending could be positive if it is due to city services for the disenfranchised catching up with city services for the rest of the population,” the researchers say. “However, the increase can be negative if it is due to the ‘common pool’ problem, the idea that council members fully value the benefits of public spending in their district but assume only a fraction of their costs, thus leading to excess city spending.”

As such, they believe that district elections can often result in excess spending on non-infrastructure projects, and indeed that this may result in equal representation and effective governance being somewhat incompatible.

Despite this, they don’t rule out the benefits of boosting minority representation on city councils, not least because it can help reduce discrimination and provide clear role models for minority groups, while also increasing political consciousness and help to foster greater identification with the government.  As with so much in life, it seems the ideal is somewhere in between.