IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberhi/0128.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Political Economy of Race, 1940-1964: The Adoption of State-Level Fair Employment Legislation

Author

Listed:
  • William J. Collins

Abstract

This paper traces the diffusion of fair employment legislation at the state level and evaluates the relative importance of various demographic, political, and economic factors in the promotion (or at least the acceptance) of the principle of government-enforced anti-discrimination policy. The empirics indicate that non-southern states with higher proportions of union members, Jews, and Catholics tended to adopt fair employment legislation sooner than other states. There is weaker evidence that after controlling for other characteristics, the likelihood of passage was lower in states dominated by the Republican Party and that there were spillover or contagion effects across states. The proportion of the population that was black does not appear to have shortened the time to adoption.

Suggested Citation

  • William J. Collins, 2000. "The Political Economy of Race, 1940-1964: The Adoption of State-Level Fair Employment Legislation," NBER Historical Working Papers 0128, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0128
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0128.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kiefer, Nicholas M, 1988. "Economic Duration Data and Hazard Functions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 646-679, June.
    2. William M. Landes, 1968. "The Economics of Fair Employment Laws," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76, pages 507-507.
    3. Gray, Virginia, 1973. "Innovation in the States: A Diffusion Study," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1174-1185, December.
    4. Leonard, Jonathan S, 1984. "Employment and Occupational Advance under Affirmative Action," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(3), pages 377-385, August.
    5. George J. Stigler, 1974. "Free Riders and Collective Action: An Appendix to Theories of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 5(2), pages 359-365, Autumn.
    6. Goldin, Claudia & Libecap, Gary D. (ed.), 1994. "The Regulated Economy," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226301105, December.
    7. Wright, Gavin, 1999. "The Civil Rights Revolution as Economic History," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 267-289, June.
    8. Roback, Jennifer, 1986. "The Political Economy of Segregation: The Case of Segregated Streetcars," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(4), pages 893-917, December.
    9. Smith, James P & Welch, Finis R, 1989. "Black Economic Progress after Myrdal," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 519-564, June.
    10. Shughart, William F, II & Tollison, Robert D, 1985. "Corporate Chartering: An Exploration in the Economics of Legal Change," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(4), pages 585-599, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. William J. Collins, 2001. "The Political Economy of Race and the Adoption of Fair Employment Laws, 1940-1964," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0104, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    2. Collins, William J., 2003. "The political economy of state-level fair employment laws, 1940-1964," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 24-51, January.
    3. Howard Bodenhorn & Carolyn Moehling & Gregory N. Price, 2012. "Short Criminals: Stature and Crime in Early America," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 393-419.
    4. David Neumark & Wendy A. Stock, 2001. "The Effects of Race and Sex Discrimination Laws," NBER Working Papers 8215, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. William J. Collins, 2001. "The Labor Market Impact of State-Level Anti-Discrimination Laws, 1940-1960," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0108, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    6. Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli & Kane, Edward J. & Laeven, Luc, 2008. "Determinants of deposit-insurance adoption and design," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 407-438, July.
    7. Mulligan, Casey B. & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Population and Regulation," Working Papers 190, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    8. Sundstrom, William A., 2001. "Discouraging Times: The Labor Force Participation of Married Black Women, 1930-1940," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 123-146, January.
    9. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The Impact of Employment Quotas on the Economic Lives of Disadvantaged Minorities in India," IZA Discussion Papers 13847, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Philipp Ager & Casper Worm Hansen, 2017. "Closing Heaven’s Door: Evidence from the 1920s U.S.Immigration Quota Acts," Discussion Papers 17-22, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    11. H. J. Holzer, "undated". "Employer hiring decisions and antidiscrimination policy," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1085-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    12. Price, Gregory N. & Darity Jr., William A. & Headen Jr., Alvin E., 2008. "Does the stigma of slavery explain the maltreatment of blacks by whites: The case of lynchings," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 167-193, February.
    13. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The impact of employment quotas on the economic lives of disadvantaged minorities in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 494-509.
    14. Lopez Edward J. & Jewell R. Todd & Campbell Noel D., 2009. "Pass a Law, Any Law, Fast! State Legislative Responses to the Kelo Backlash," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 101-135, April.
    15. Renneboog, L.D.R. & Simons, T., 2005. "Public-to-Private Transactions : LBOs, MBOs, MBIs and IBOs," Other publications TiSEM 3b76799c-591c-4d22-b126-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Tom Coupé & Valérie Smeets & Frédéric Warzynski, 2006. "Incentives, Sorting and Productivity along the Career: Evidence from a Sample of Top Economists," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 137-167, April.
    17. Calomiris, Charles W. & Mason, Joseph R. & Wheelock, David C., 2011. "Did Doubling Reserve Requirements Cause the Recession of 1937-1938? A Microeconomic Approach," Working Papers 11-03, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    18. Sheedy, Kevin D., 2010. "Intrinsic inflation persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 1049-1061, November.
    19. Dekkers, G.J.M., 1994. "The private sector versus the government : A four-state labour market transition model," WORC Paper 94.07.033/2, Tilburg University, Work and Organization Research Centre.
    20. de Walque, Damien, 2007. "How does the impact of an HIV/AIDS information campaign vary with educational attainment? Evidence from rural Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 686-714, November.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0128. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.