Resources

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Exercises

Figures

Figure 1: The ratio of average White to average Black wealth (left) and income (right) from approximately the end of the Civil War until the present.
Figure 2: Myrdal’s vicious circle of racial inequality.
Figure 3: Two maps of Chicago. On the left, we have the HOLC appraisal map, and on the right, we have a map showing where the Black population of Chicago lived in 1940.
Figure 4: On the left is the life expectancy at birth in the U.S. by race. On the right is the median Black male income by geographic region, showing a convergence between the South and other parts of the country starting in 1960.
Figure 5: The top panel shows the real median income for each racial group counted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The data is presented in 2018 dollars. The bottom panel shows the ratio of Black to White unemployment.
Figure 6: Wages by education and race. The top panel shows the annual average unemployment by race and education in 2017. The bottom panel shows the Black–White wage ratio by different education levels, for the years 1979 and 2017.
Figure 7: Audit study results from Milwaukee (left) and New York City (right) showing notable discrimination against Black applicants with a criminal record.
Figure 8: Vicious circles of credit constraint and exclusion.
Figure 9: Intense segregation of Black students across time and region. To be intensely segregated means attending a school whose student body is at least 90% minority.
Figure 10: College education by race and gender from 1940 to 2020.
Figure 11: Average neighborhood poverty levels during childhood among Black and White children in different generations.
Figure 12: Positive feedback cycle of segregation and neighborhood poverty.
Figure 13: Total number of incarcerated Americans from 1910 to 2014. Incarceration is broken down by: prison, where those convicted go to serve out their terms; jail, where people are held awaiting trials or for minor crimes; and juvenile detention, which is prison for minors.
Figure 14a: The top figure shows the intergenerational correlation for the United States as a whole. The bottom shows the same for different racial groups.
Figure 14b: Understanding the IGC.
Figure 15: A model of intergenerational mobility by race.
Figure 16: A model of intergenerational mobility for a Black family.
Figure 17: A model of intergenerational mobility for a White family.
Figure 18: The feedback cycle between the three key mechanisms.