The American Family in Black and White: A Post-Racial Strategy for Improving Skills to Promote Equality

James J. Heckman

NBER Working Paper No. 16841
Issued in March 2011

---- Acknowledgements -----

This research was supported by the American Bar Foundation, NICHD R01 HD065072, NICHD R01 HD054702, the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), the J.B. & M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation, the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, the MacArthur Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and an anonymous foundation. The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily those of the funders. I thank Steve Durlauf, Miriam Gensowski, Lynne Pettler Heckman, Tim Kautz, Nick Mader, Seong Hyeok Moon, Rich Neimand, Bob Pollak, and Paul Tough for their very helpful comments on drafts of the paper. Molly Schnell gave devoted research assistance and helpful commentary. I thank Nick Mader and Seong Moon for their help in producing some of the supporting materials for this paper. Supporting material for this paper is at the website http://jenni.uchicago.edu/understanding_b-w_gap/. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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