Selection and Economic Gains in the Great Migration of African Americans: New Evidence from Linked Census Data

William Collins and Marianne Wanamaker ()

No 19124, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The onset of World War I spurred the "Great Migration" of African Americans from the U.S. South, arguably the most important internal migration in U.S. history. We create a new panel dataset of more than 5,000 men matched from the 1910 to 1930 census manuscripts to address three interconnected questions: To what extent was there selection into migration? How large were the migrants' gains? Did migration narrow the racial gap in economic status? We find evidence of positive selection, but the migrants' gains were large. A substantial amount of black-white convergence in this period is attributable to migration.

JEL-codes: J15 J61 N32 N92 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-mig and nep-ure
Note: DAE LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published as William J. Collins & Marianne H. Wanamaker, 2014. "Selection and Economic Gains in the Great Migration of African Americans: New Evidence from Linked Census Data," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 220-52, January.

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Journal Article: Selection and Economic Gains in the Great Migration of African Americans: New Evidence from Linked Census Data (2014)
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