The Impact of Antebellum Slavery on Contemporary Income Inequality

Authors

  • Javier E. del Cid Middlebury College
  • Dominick Tanoh Middlebury College
  • Ian N. Sexton Middlebury College
  • Haruna Takeda Middlebury College
  • Paul Martin Sommers Middlebury College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47611/jsr.v6i1.353

Keywords:

Slavery, Income Inequality, Gini Coefficients

Abstract

The authors relate county-level data on the population of slaves in the antebellum South to present-day county-level Gini ratios on income inequality.  Outside the five Deep Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, the intensity of slavery in 1860 is associated with a lower degree of income inequality.  Inside these same five states in counties where the population of slaves accounted for more than 71 percent of the county’s total population in 1860, there is evidence of a strong positive relationship between slavery and contemporary income inequality.

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Author Biographies

Javier E. del Cid, Middlebury College

Student

Dominick Tanoh, Middlebury College

Student

Ian N. Sexton, Middlebury College

Student

Haruna Takeda, Middlebury College

Student

Paul Martin Sommers, Middlebury College

Paige-Wright Professor of Economics

Published

05-23-2017

How to Cite

del Cid, J. E., Tanoh, D., Sexton, I. N., Takeda, H., & Sommers, P. M. (2017). The Impact of Antebellum Slavery on Contemporary Income Inequality. Journal of Student Research, 6(1), 56-92. https://doi.org/10.47611/jsr.v6i1.353

Issue

Section

Research Articles