TY  - JOUR
AU  - Costa,Dora L.
AU  - Kahn,Matthew E.
TI  - Forging a New Identity: The Costs and Benefits of Diversity in Civil War Combat Units for Black Slaves and Freemen
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11013
PY  - 2004
Y2  - December 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11013
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11013.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Dora Costa
Bunche Hall 9272
Department of Economics
UCLA
Box 951477
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477
Tel: (310) 825-4249
Fax: (310) 825-9528
E-Mail: costa@econ.ucla.edu

Matthew E. Kahn
UCLA Institute of the Environment
Department of Economics
Department of Public Policy
Box 951496
La Kretz Hall, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1496
Tel: 310/794-4904
Fax: 310/825-9663
E-Mail: mkahn@ioe.ucla.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -