TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cascio,Elizabeth
AU  - Gordon,Nora
AU  - Lewis,Ethan
AU  - Reber,Sarah
TI  - Paying for Progress: Conditional Grants and the Desegregation of Southern Schools
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14869
PY  - 2009
Y2  - April 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14869
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14869.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Elizabeth U. Cascio
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
6106 Rockefeller Hall
Hanover, NH 03755
Tel: (603) 646-4096
Fax: (603) 646-2122
E-Mail: elizabeth.u.cascio@dartmouth.edu

Nora E. Gordon
Georgetown Public Policy Institute
306 Old North
37th and O Streets NW
Washington, DC 20057
Tel: 202/687-6756
E-Mail: neg24@georgetown.edu

Ethan G. Lewis
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
6106 Rockefeller Hall
Hanover, NH 03755
Tel: 603/646-2943
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: ethan.g.lewis@dartmouth.edu

Sarah J. Reber
University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Public Policy
School of Public Affairs
3250 Public Policy Building
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tel: 310-694-8699
E-Mail: sreber@ucla.edu
AB  - This paper examines how a large conditional grants program influenced school desegregation in the American South.  Exploiting newly collected archival data and quasi-experimental variation in potential per-pupil federal grants, we show that school districts with more at risk in 1966 were more likely to desegregate just enough to receive their funds.  Although the program did not raise the exposure of blacks to whites like later court orders, districts with larger grants at risk in 1966 were less likely to be under court order through 1970, suggesting that tying federal funds to nondiscrimination reduced the burden of desegregation on federal courts.
ER  -