How does the arrival of a new minority group affect the social acceptance and outcomes of existing minorities? We study this question in the context of the First Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1930, 1.5 million African Americans moved from the US South to Northern urban centers, which were...

How do social group boundaries evolve? Does the appearance of a new out-group change the in-group's perceptions of other out-groups? We introduce a conceptual framework of context-dependent categorization, in which exposure to one minority leads to recategorization of other minorities when the...

How does the arrival of a new minority group affect the social acceptance and outcomes of existing minorities? We study this question in the context of the First Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1930, 1.5 million African Americans moved from the US South to Northern urban centers, which were...

We analyze the conditions under which a country’s social structure facilitates or impedes the state’s mobilization of financial resources during civil conflict. Our argument emphasizes the ways in which the central state can divide and conquer social groups in order to empower the state....

How do coercive societies respond to negative economic shocks? We explore this question in the early 20th-Century United States South. Since before the nation's founding, cotton cultivation formed the politics and institutions in the South, including the development of slavery, the lack of...