Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18238
Authors: Andrea Bernini; Giovanni Facchini; Marco Tabellini; Cecilia Testa
Abstract: The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we document that the VRA increases both Black and white political participation. Consistent with the VRA triggering counter-mobilization, the surge in white registrations is concentrated where Black political empowerment is more tangible and salient due to the election of African Americans in county commissions. Additional analysis suggests that the VRA has long-lasting negative effects on whites' racial attitudes.
Keywords: race; enfranchisement; voting behavior; civil rights
JEL Codes: D72; J15; H70; N92
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Voting Rights Act (VRA) (K16) | increase in black political participation (K16) |
| Voting Rights Act (VRA) (K16) | increase in white political participation (K16) |
| increase in share of African Americans (J15) | decline in black-white registration gap (K16) |
| increase in white political participation (K16) | decline in black-white registration gap (K16) |
| Voting Rights Act (VRA) (K16) | increase in hate crimes against African Americans (J15) |