Working Paper: NBER ID: w1200
Authors: Robert A. Margo
Abstract: 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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Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| black wealth accumulation (D31) | faster than white wealth accumulation (P19) |
| black wealth accumulation (D31) | illiteracy (Y50) |
| black wealth accumulation (D31) | land prices (R31) |
| black wealth accumulation (D31) | cotton cultivation (Q10) |
| black wealth accumulation (D31) | population density (J11) |
| failure to account for assessment ratios (G32) | biased conclusions regarding wealth accumulation (D31) |
| adjusting for assessment ratios (C51) | perceived rate of growth of black wealth (F62) |