Jim Crow and the Economic Development of Blacks After Slavery

This paper examines the long-term effects of slavery and the limited Jim Crow institutions on the economic outcomes of black Americans. We track individual Black family records from 1850 to 1940, and expand our analysis to neighborhood-level results in 2000 and surname-based results in 2023. lower education, income, and wealth than Black families whose ancestors were free before the Civil War. The tension between the two groups continued because many families enslaved until the Civil War lived in states with strong Jim Crow states after the end of slavery. In a regression analysis of discontinuing progress based on places of ancestral slavery, we show that Jim Crow institutions significantly reduced the economic progress of black families over time.

That paper, by Lukas Althoff and Hugh Reichardt, will appear in QJE, what is Florian Ederer who talked about this on Twitter?



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