Was Postwar Suburbanization "White Flight"? Evidence from the Black Migration

Leah Boustan

No 13543, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Residential segregation by jurisdiction generates disparities in public services and education. The distinctive American pattern - in which blacks live in cities and whites in suburbs - was enhanced by a large black migration from the rural South. I show that whites responded to this black influx by leaving cities and rule out an indirect effect on housing prices as a sole cause. I instrument for changes in black population by using local economic conditions to predict black migration from southern states and assigning predicted flows to northern cities according to established settlement patterns. The best causal estimates imply that each black arrival led to 2.7 white departures.

JEL-codes: J61 N12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-mig and nep-ure
Note: DAE LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Leah Platt Boustan, 2010. "Was Postwar Suburbanization "White Flight"? Evidence from the Black Migration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 125(1), pages 417-443, February.

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Journal Article: Was Postwar Suburbanization "White Flight"? Evidence from the Black Migration (2010)
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