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Do Black Politicians Matter? Evidence from Reconstruction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2020

Trevon D. Logan
Trevon D. Logan*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, The Ohio State University and NBER, 410 Arps Hall, 1945 North High Street, Columbus, OH43210. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

This paper exploits the history of Reconstruction after the American Civil War to estimate the effect of politician race on public finance. While the effect of black politicians is positive and significant, black officials may be endogenous to electoral preferences for redistribution. I therefore use the number of free blacks in the antebellum era (1860) as an instrument for black political leaders during Reconstruction. Instrumental variables (IV) estimates show that an additional black official increased per capita county tax revenue by $0.20, more than an hour’s wage at the time. The effect was not persistent, however, disappearing entirely once black politicians were removed from office at Reconstruction’s end. Consistent with the stated policy objectives of black officials, I find positive effects of black politicians on land tenancy and black literacy. These results suggest that black political leaders had large effects on public finance and individual outcomes over and above electoral preferences.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 1 - 37
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2020

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Footnotes

I thank Lee Alston, Rodney J. Andrews, Renee Bowen, John J. Clegg, William Collins, Lisa D. Cook, Stanley L. Engerman, Vicky Fouka, Stephen Hahn, Anna Harvey, Damon Jones, Suresh Naidu, John M. Parman, Jon Pritchett, Richard H. Steckel, Melissa Thomasson, Ebonya L. Washington, Gavin Wright, audiences at Williams, Maryland, Ohio State, Yale, Vanderbilt, Emory, the NBER DAE Spring Meeting, WEAI, EHA, PIEP, SSHA, AHA, and Brookings, and three anonymous reviewers for feedback and suggestions. Eric Bloomfield, Jacob Ginsberg, Isaac Kebe, Spencer LaHue, Matthew Mahoney, Alan McClain, Adaeze Okoli, Tiara Shanklin, and Taylor Smith provided excellent research assistance. The usual disclaimer applies.

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