Publications
Publications
- Forthcoming
- Journal of Political Economy
Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act
By: Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini and Cecilia Testa
Abstract
How did southern whites respond to the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA)? Leveraging
newly digitized data on county-level voter registration by race between 1956 and
1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention,
we document that the VRA increases both Black and white political participation.
Consistent with the VRA triggering white counter-mobilization, the surge in white
registrations is concentrated in counties where African Americans represent a political
threat. Counter-mobilization leads to a short run increase in support for racially
conservative candidates, and to a slow-down in local public spending salient to Black
Americans, such as public sector employment and education.
Keywords
Citation
Bernini, Andrea, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini, and Cecilia Testa. "Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act." Journal of Political Economy (forthcoming). (Also available on Vox EU and VoxDev. Featured on HBS Working Knowledge.)