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The Forest Behind the Tree: Heterogeneity in How US Governor's Party Affects Black Workers

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  • Tchuente, Guy
  • Kakeu, Johnson
  • Francois, John Nana

Abstract

Income inequality is a distributional phenomenon. This paper examines the impact of U.S governor's party allegiance (Republican vs Democrat) on ethnic wage gap. A descriptive analysis of the distribution of yearly earnings of Whites and Blacks reveals a divergence in their respective shapes over time suggesting that aggregate analysis may mask important heterogeneous effects. This motivates a granular estimation of the comparative causal effect of governors' party affiliation on labor market outcomes. We use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) based on marginal electoral victories and samples of quantiles groups by wage and hours worked. Overall, the distributional causal estimations show that the vast majority of subgroups of black workers earnings are not affected by democrat governors' policies, suggesting the possible existence of structural factors in the labor markets that contribute to create and keep a wage trap and/or hour worked trap for most of the subgroups of black workers. Democrat governors increase the number of hours worked of black workers at the highest quartiles of earnings. A bivariate quantiles groups analysis shows that democrats decrease the total hours worked for black workers who have the largest number of hours worked and earn the least. Black workers earning more and working fewer hours than half of the sample see their number of hours worked increase under a democrat governor.

Suggested Citation

  • Tchuente, Guy & Kakeu, Johnson & Francois, John Nana, 2021. "The Forest Behind the Tree: Heterogeneity in How US Governor's Party Affects Black Workers," GLO Discussion Paper Series 947, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:947
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    U.S. State Policy; Black Workers; US Labor Market; RDD; Governors' Effects Heterogeneity; Bivariate Quantile Causality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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