CARE Seminar: Lukas Althoff, Stanford

Speaker

Lukas Althoff, Stanford

Biography

I am an Assistant Professor at Stanford University's Department of Economics.

I study long-run economic change with a focus on inequality, using tools from applied microeconomics and economic history. 

I received my PhD from Princeton University in 2023.

Title

"Jim Crow and Economic Development"

Abstract

Following the abolition of slavery a new set of extractive institutions emerged in the US South collectively known as Jim Crow. This paper studies the impact of these institutions on local economic development and white elites' economic status. First we show that Jim Crow institutions grew most restrictive in states with the highest Black population growth. Second using a new shift-share IV design based on within-South Black migration combined with new data on congressional legislative votes we show that growing local Black populations caused the adoption of anti-Black institutions. Third we show that these anti-Black institutions slowed local economic development in the South while benefiting white elites. We show that this quantitative evidence not only aligns with the long-standing hypothesis that land-owning elites imposed anti-Black institutions on Southern society for their own gain but it also explains why the South only started to catch up with non-Southern economic development after the end of Jim Crow.