There are large racial differences in access to the financial system among young adults. Lack of access to savings and investment opportunities results in low financial returns on savings. Low returns, in turn, reduce ex-ante incentives to save, work, and invest in human capital. Using a...

Although the substantial and persistent gap between the unemployment rates of African-Americans and whites in the United States first gained attention in the 1940s and 1950s, disaggregation reveals that the gap already existed in urban areas before 1940. Using individual-level data on male...