Market Competition, Consumer Discrimination, and Public Accommodations: Evidence From Green Books

Project Outcomes Statement

This project addresses the void in the literature about segregated accommodations by making use of an important historical tool used by African Americans in navigating segregation: The Negro Motorist Green Books. This project has digitized data on firms, prices charged by firms, laws relating to discrimination, consumer sentiment about discriminatory practices, and the travel network of firms along roadways in the middle of the twentieth century. Our analysis reveals several new facts about discrimination in public accommodations that contribute to our understanding of racial segregation and consumer discrimination. First, the largest number of Green Book establishments were found in the Northeast, while the lowest number were found in the West. The Midwest had the highest number of Green Book establishments per black resident and the South had the lowest. We found that economic and social measures, as well as state laws relating to racial discrimination and antidiscrimination, were correlated with the provision of nondiscriminatory services. We also show that the location and growth of Green Book establishments responded to economic forces, that there was a large increase in the number of Green Book establishments in cities between 1939 and 1955, and that 1950s urban renewal projects were related to the contraction of non-discriminatory businesses. We find that increases in non-discrimination were concentrated in the least competitive markets, where the threat of defection by White consumers to competing discriminatory firms was lowest. We assemble new data on over 25,000 prices charged at establishments by discriminatory status and show that non-discriminatory firms charged higher prices than discriminatory firms in the same local market.