Black Americans’ Landholdings and Economic Mobility after Emancipation: Evidence from the Census of Agriculture and Linked Records
利用1880年农业普查数据，比较黑人和白人家庭的土地持有情况，并追踪其子代在1900年的经济与人力资本状况，发现黑人土地所有者虽能传递代际优势，但远不足以缩小种族经济差距。
Large and persistent racial disparities in land-based wealth were an important legacy of the Reconstruction era. To assess how these disparities were transmitted intergenerationally, we build a dataset to observe Black households’ landholdings in 1880 alongside a sample of White households. We then link sons from all households to the 1900 census records to observe their economic and human capital outcomes. We show that Black landowners, relative to laborers, transmitted substantial intergenerational advantages to their sons, particularly in literacy and homeownership. However, such advantages were small relative to the racial gaps in measures of economic status.