Working Paper: NBER ID: w17776
Authors: Elizabeth U. Cascio; Ebonya L. Washington
Abstract: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) has been called one of the most effective pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history, having generated dramatic increases in black voter registration across the South. We show that the expansion of black voting rights in some southern states brought about by one requirement of the VRA - the elimination of literacy tests at voter registration - was accompanied by a shift in the distribution of state aid toward localities with higher proportions of black residents, a finding that is consistent with models of distributive politics. Our estimates imply an elasticity of state transfers to counties with respect to turnout in presidential elections - the closest available measure of enfranchisement - of roughly one.
Keywords: Voting Rights Act; Black Voter Registration; State Transfers; Public Goods; Distributive Politics
JEL Codes: D72; H7; I2; J15; N32
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| elimination of literacy tests (K16) | increase in black voter registration (K16) |
| increase in black voter registration (K16) | shift in state aid distribution towards localities with higher proportions of black residents (H73) |
| increase in black voter registration (K16) | increase in per capita state transfers for every 10 percentage point increase in a county's black population share (H73) |
| removal of literacy tests (K16) | increase in per capita state transfers (H79) |
| shift in state aid distribution towards localities with higher proportions of black residents (H73) | higher enrollment rates of black teenagers in schools (I24) |