TY  - JOUR
AU  - Naidu,Suresh
TI  - Suffrage, Schooling, and Sorting in the Post-Bellum U.S. South
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18129
PY  - 2012
Y2  - June 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18129
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18129.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Suresh Naidu
Columbia University
School of International and Public Affairs
MC 3328
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212/854-3213
E-Mail: sn2430@columbia.edu
AB  - This paper estimates the political and economic effects of the 19th century disenfranchisement of black citizens in the U.S. South. Using adjacent county-pairs that straddle state boundaries, I examine the effect of voting restrictions on political competition, public goods, and factor markets. I find that poll taxes and literacy tests each lowered overall electoral turnout by 8-22% and increased the Democratic vote share in elections by 1-7%. Employing newly collected data on schooling inputs, I show that disenfranchisement reduced the teacher-child ratio in black schools by 10-23%, with no significant effects on white teacher-child ratios. I develop a model of suffrage restriction and redistribution in a 2-factor economy with migration and agricultural production to generate sufficient statistics for welfare analysis of the incidence of black disenfranchisement. Consistent with the model, disenfranchised counties experienced a 3.5% increase in farm values per acre, despite a 4% fall in the black population. The estimated factor market responses suggest that black labor bore a collective loss from disenfranchisement equivalent to at least 15% of annual income, with landowners experiencing a 12% gain.
ER  -