Working Paper: NBER ID: w11013
Authors: Dora L. Costa; Matthew E. Kahn
Abstract: By the end of the Civil War, 186,017 black men had fought for the Union Army and roughly three-quarters of these men were former slaves. Because most of the black soldiers who served were illiterate farm workers, the war exposed them to a much broader world. The war experience of these men depended upon their peers, their commanding officers, and where their regiment toured. These factors affected the later life outcomes of black slaves and freemen. This paper documents both the short run costs and long run benefits of participating in a diverse environment. In the short run the combat unit benefited from company homogeneity as this built social capital and minimized shirking, but in the long run men's human capital and aquisition of information was best served by fighting in heterogeneous companies.
Keywords: Diversity; Civil War; Human Capital; Social Capital
JEL Codes: J24; M12; Z13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Company diversity (birthplace and cohort fragmentation) (J79) | likelihood of desertion, AWOL, or arrest among black soldiers (J45) |
| Company diversity (M14) | postwar migration patterns (J61) |
| Company diversity (fraction of free men) (J79) | literacy rates (I24) |
| Comrades from the same plantation (P32) | likelihood of desertion or arrest (K42) |
| Higher fraction of free men (P19) | name changes among former slaves (J62) |