Why has the U.S. black/white earnings gap remained around 40 percent for nearly 40 years? This paper''s answer consists of a model of skill accumulation and neighborhood formation featuring a trap: Initial racial inequality and racial preferences induce racial segregation and asymmetric skill...

Why do high-income black households live in neighborhoods with characteristics similar to those of low-income white households? We find that neighborhood sorting by income and race cannot be explained by financial constraints: High-income, high-wealth black households live in similar-quality...

Critics have said that affirmative action is at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive. In particular, it has been argued that if affirmative action helps anybody, it helps only the highly educated cream of the minority population, and may perversely work to the detriment of the...

Community or interpersonal support as a critical source of livelihood sustenance in the Global South can exhibit unequal dynamics. An understanding of these practices is primarily tied to the conceptual space of poverty or small communities. Less is known about how social support systems might...

Latin America is one of the regions with the highest income inequality and one of the most racially diverse. Historically, most Latin American countries build their national identities through a 'melting pot' ethnic figure: 'mestizos' or 'mulatos' —the mixed-race descendent from European,...

America was founded on institutionally recognized and supported racial oppression, namely, slavery and conquest. The fact that the inequality spawned by this oppression continues to exist today should therefore surprise absolutely no one. That said, the extent of the racialized social and...

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...