We’re pleased to announce the release of our new WP "Wealth of two nations: The US racial wealth gap, 1860-2020," in which we provide the first continuous time series of white-to-Black per capita wealth ratios over the past 160 years. 1/10
nber.org/papers/w30101 We combined historical census data, early 20th century state tax reports, yearbooks of Black economic progress, the census of agriculture, historical consumer studies, and 70 years of survey of consumer finances data to build and validate our new time series. 2/10

In contrast to the pitch below, this article feels like a step backwards in our understanding of structural racism as economists. 1/7

https://twitter.com/nytimesbusiness/status/1409488764561498113

First, by construction, economic models of discrimination were never meant to explain the magnitude of economic gaps btwn Black & white Americans. They're meant to explain portions of residuals instead. And the rely on narrow, "pure" notions of discrimination to do so. 2/7

How do employer MWs affect the broader labor market? @profsheena, @ClemensNoelke, & I have been studying the effects of Amazon, Walmart, Target, & Costco Mws. New WP covering our first set of results (summarized below) now available here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…. 1/8 Using job ads data and employee surveys, we show that large retailers publicly announcing MWs do shift their own wage structure. Here is Amazon moving to $15 within a few months of their October 2018 announcement. 2/8