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Forging a New Identity: The Costs and Benefits of Diversity in Civil War Combat Units for Black Slaves and Freemen

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  • Dora L. Costa
  • Matthew E. Kahn

Abstract

By the end of the Civil War, 186,017 black men had fought for the Union Army and roughly three-quarters of these men were former slaves. Because most of the black soldiers who served were illiterate farm workers, the war exposed them to a much broader world. The war experience of these men depended upon their peers, their commanding officers, and where their regiment toured. These factors affected the later life outcomes of black slaves and freemen. This paper documents both the short run costs and long run benefits of participating in a diverse environment. In the short run the combat unit benefited from company homogeneity as this built social capital and minimized shirking, but in the long run men's human capital and aquisition of information was best served by fighting in heterogeneous companies.

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  • Dora L. Costa & Matthew E. Kahn, 2004. "Forging a New Identity: The Costs and Benefits of Diversity in Civil War Combat Units for Black Slaves and Freemen," NBER Working Papers 11013, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11013
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Should Your Freshman College Roommate Be Your Clone?
      by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2010-08-23 05:51:00
    2. The Future of Economic History?
      by Matthew Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2015-04-08 19:45:00
    3. Own Group Preferences in the Year 2017
      by Matthew Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2017-04-17 06:04:00

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    1. Koenig, Christoph, 2023. "Loose Cannons: War Veterans and the Erosion of Democracy in Weimar Germany," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 167-202, March.
    2. Jha, Saumitra & Wilkinson, Steven, 2012. "Veterans, Organizational Skill and Ethnic Cleansing: Evidence from the Partition of South Asia," Research Papers 2092, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    3. Cook, Lisa D. & Logan, Trevon D. & Parman, John M., 2014. "Distinctively black names in the American past," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 64-82.
    4. Logan, Trevon D., 2009. "Health, human capital, and African-American migration before 1910," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 169-185, April.
    5. Lee, Chulhee, 2007. "Military positions and post-service occupational mobility of Union Army veterans, 1861-1880," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 680-698, October.
    6. Hong, Sok Chul & Hwang, Inhyuk, 2024. "Race, immunity, and lifespan: Unraveling the effect of early-life exposure to malaria risk on lifespan," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    7. Franklin G. Mixon & Rand W. Ressler & Richard J. Cebula, 2012. "Beyond the Friday night lights: Social networks, migration, and individual success in college football," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(1), pages 16-26.
    8. Green, Tiffany L. & Hamilton, Tod G., 2013. "Beyond black and white: Color and mortality in post-reconstruction era North Carolina," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 148-159.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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