The White/Black Educational Gap, Stalled Progress, and the Long Term Consequences of the Emergence of Crack Cocaine Markets

William Evans, Craig Garthwaite and Timothy Moore

No 18437, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We propose the rise of crack cocaine markets as an explanation for the end to the convergence in black-white educational outcomes beginning in the mid-1980s. After constructing a measure to date the arrival of crack markets in cities and states, we show large increases in murder and incarceration rates after these dates. Black high school graduation rates also decline, and we estimate that crack markets accounts for between 40 and 73 percent of the fall in black male high school graduation rates. We argue that the primary mechanism is reduced educational investments in response to decreased returns to schooling.

JEL-codes: I0 I2 I21 I28 J0 J01 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-ure
Note: ED LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published as William N. Evans & Craig Garthwaite & Timothy J. Moore, 2016. "The White/Black Educational Gap, Stalled Progress, and the Long-Term Consequences of the Emergence of Crack Cocaine Markets," Review of Economics and Statistics, vol 98(5), pages 832-847.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18437.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The White/Black Educational Gap, Stalled Progress, and the Long-Term Consequences of the Emergence of Crack Cocaine Markets (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18437

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18437

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().