The Obama presidency intensified discussions of how electing a black leader affected white Americans' attitude toward black Americans. I test for its causal impact using black electoral victories in local elections. Using Race Implicit Attitude Test scores as a measure of racial prejudice and...

This paper aims at an improved understanding of the relationship between monetary policy and racial inequality. We investigate the distributional effects of monetary policy in a unified framework, linking monetary policy shocks both to earnings and wealth differentials between black and white...

This study investigates the impact of malaria eradication programs on black-white economic disparities in the early 1900s US South. Malaria eradication was widespread and improved health across races. Yet, only white men experienced economic benefits. Using matched census records, we find that...

Assessing rent discounts implied by rent regulation is challenging because the counterfactual rents of regulated units in the unregulated market are not observed. We estimate these counterfactual rents and predict the quality-adjusted rent discount for each rent-stabilized unit in New York City...

Although racial inequalities are much researched, studies differ on the specific measure of individuals’ racial identity that they consider. This can affect the comparability of results across studies and, more importantly, the estimation of racial inequality in society. We estimate the extent...

While unemployment insurance (UI) could help attenuate racial income disparities in the U.S., Black unemployed workers seem to receive less UI benefits than White ones. To understand why, we analyze administrative data from random audits on UI claims in all U.S. states. We first document a large...

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated racial disparities in U.S. mortgage markets. Black, Hispanic, and Asian borrowers were significantly more likely than white borrowers to miss payments due to financial distress, and significantly less likely to refinance to take advantage of the large decline in...

We study the implications of incarceration for the earnings and employment of different groups, characterized by their race, gender, and education. Our hidden Markov model distinguishes between first-time and repeat incarceration, along with other persistent and transitory nonemployment and...

We find that minority operated funds deliver higher alphas, Sharpe ratios, and information ratios than do non-minority operated funds. Moreover, minority fund managers attended more selective schools, worked at higher status investment banks, and are more likely to hold post-graduate degrees....

Rent stabilization is valuable to occupying tenants because it limits rent growth. Assessing the rent discount implied by this policy is challenging because the counterfactual rents that rent-stabilized units would command in the unregulated market are unobservable. Using novel data from 2002 to...