Accumulation of Property by Southern Blacks Before World War I: Commentand Further Evidence /
Margo, Robert A.
Accumulation of Property by Southern Blacks Before World War I: Commentand Further Evidence / Robert A. Margo. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1983. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w1200 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w1200. .
September 1983.
The pace and pattern of wealth accumulation by Southern blacks in the period before World War I is of central importance to the historical evolution of black/white income differences. This paper extends recent work by Robert Higgs, who used data on assessed wealth for Georgia to study the temporal and cross-sectional variation in black wealth accumulation during the post-bellum era. Using similar data for five additional states, I show that one of Higgs' principal conclusions -- measured by tax assessments, blacks accumulated wealth more rapidly than whites -- is a general finding, but that the cross-sectional determinants of black wealth appear to have varied markedly across states. Issues of assessment ratio bias are also considered, and using data for one state, I demonstrate that failure to account for intrastate and race differences in assessment ratios may bias the cross-sectional findings and significantly overstate the true relative (black/white) growth rate of black wealth.
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Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Accumulation of Property by Southern Blacks Before World War I: Commentand Further Evidence / Robert A. Margo. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1983. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w1200 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w1200. .
September 1983.
The pace and pattern of wealth accumulation by Southern blacks in the period before World War I is of central importance to the historical evolution of black/white income differences. This paper extends recent work by Robert Higgs, who used data on assessed wealth for Georgia to study the temporal and cross-sectional variation in black wealth accumulation during the post-bellum era. Using similar data for five additional states, I show that one of Higgs' principal conclusions -- measured by tax assessments, blacks accumulated wealth more rapidly than whites -- is a general finding, but that the cross-sectional determinants of black wealth appear to have varied markedly across states. Issues of assessment ratio bias are also considered, and using data for one state, I demonstrate that failure to account for intrastate and race differences in assessment ratios may bias the cross-sectional findings and significantly overstate the true relative (black/white) growth rate of black wealth.
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.