Did COVID Change the Black Neighborhood Startup Deficit? Evidence from the Startup Cartography Project
Motivated by William Julius Wilson’s account of concentrated disadvantage, we examine a local poverty-trap interpretation of low entrepreneurship in Black neighborhoods. Using registration data from 38 states, we document a long-standing Black neighborhood startup deficit. Amid shocks that raised expectations of greater economic activity, the deficit reverses sharply in 2020, particularly where pre-existing deficits were larger. While the overall surplus attenuates, relative entrepreneurship remains elevated in high-deficit Black neighborhoods, and neighborhood-oriented entrepreneurship also remains elevated through 2024. Together, these patterns are consistent with a partially sustained shift toward a higher-activity equilibrium.
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Copy CitationCatherine E. Fazio, Jorge Guzman, Scott Stern, and Yan Xu, "Did COVID Change the Black Neighborhood Startup Deficit? Evidence from the Startup Cartography Project," NBER Working Paper 35752 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w35752.Download Citation
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