I'm deeply disappointed
Tyler Cowen at The Volokh Conspiracy says in a post titled Against slavery reparations
I just read a very interesting paper by
Bruce Sacerdote, economist at Dartmouth. His abstract tells us:
"How much do sins visited upon one generation harm that generation's future sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters?...I find that it took roughly two generations for the descendants of slaves to "catch up" to the descendents of free black men and women."
Here's a link directly to a pdf file of the paper under discussion, which is titled
Slavery and Intergenerational Transmission.
I ran across this paper a couple of months ago, and I just
KNEW someone would attempt to use it as an argument against reparations.
Please, you Volokh readers out there. Here's the entire abstract;
How much do sins visited upon one generation harm that generation's future sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters? I study this question by comparing outcomes for former slaves and their children and grandchildren to outcomes for free blacks (pre-1865), and their children and grandchildren. The outcome measures include literacy, whether a child attends school, whether a child lives in a female headed household, and two measures of adult occupation. Using a variety of different comparisons, (e.g. within versus across regions) I find that it took roughly two generations for the descendants of slaves to "catch up" to the descendants of free black men and women. This finding is consistent with modern estimates and interpretations of father-son correlations in income and socioeconomic status. The data used are from the 1880 and 1920 1 percent (IPUMS) samples, a 100 percent sample of the 1880 Census and a smaller data set in which I link families in the 1920 IPUMS back to the father's family in a 100% sample of the 1880 Census. These latter data sets are derived from an electronic version of the 1880 Census recently compiled and released by the Mormon Church with assistance from the Minnesota Population Center.
Note the date involved. 1880 and 1920. Ask yourselves two questions
- How far did they really have to go to catch up?
- How much progress did Black folks as a whole make in this time frame
It's much easier to catch up to a reference point that for all practical purposes is standing still.
With all I'd heard about The Volokh Conspiracy, I expected much better than this.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/30/2003 06:42:45 PM |
Posted by P6 at July 30, 2003 06:42 PM
| Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1365
