The Scholarly Status of Blacks in the Economics Profession: Have the National Economic Association and the Review of Black Political Economy Mattered?

This paper considers whether the National Economic Association and its journal the Review of Black Political Economy have enhanced the scholarly status of black economists. A bibliometric analysis reveals that while the typical black economist has never published in the Review of Black Political Economy, the share of black economists publishing in the Review of Black Economy approximates the share of all articles published on the economic and political economy of race by black economists, and the share of articles published in the Review of Black Political Economy by black economists appears higher than typical journals in economics—particularly for black economists employed at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. We also find that similar to other economics journals non-black economists dominate the share of published articles, and publications in the Review of Black Political Economy appear to be consistent with Lotka’s Law of scientific productivity suggesting that the journal is a standard outlet for research no different from any other science journal. Our results imply a plausible counterfactual that if the National Economic Association and Review of Black Political Economy did not exist, the scholarly status of blacks in the economics profession would have been lower than currently observed.     

The origin,birth, and adolescence of the review of black political economy and the black economic research center

The Review of Black Political Economy (RBPE) and the Black Economic Research Center (BERC) arose from the atmosphere of the late sixties, when black nationalism was at its apex and vigorous efforts were under way to give meaning to the concepts of “black economic development” and “black capitalism.” They were created as vehicles to assist black economists and economic activists to analyze and disseminate relevant data on black economic affairs and to explore and facilitate new approaches to black economic problems.RBPE offered black economists a place where they could publish their work and share it with their colleagues. The flavor ofRBPE has changed somewhat over its twenty-three year life, becoming less polemical and more scholarly.     

The Emergence of the Black Economic Research Center and The Review of Black Political Economy: 1969–1972

This essay discusses the legacy of Robert Browne in the founding of the Black Economic Research Center (BERC), The Review of Black Political Economy, and the Caucus of Black Economists and its evolvement into the National Economic Association. The launching of BERC occurred within a period of far-reaching social change and the Vietnam War era. During this time, Robert Browne also was a national leader of the Vietnam anti-war movement and one of the first public intellectuals to establish a link between the civil rights movement and the peace movement. An argument is developed that this background provided as much impetus to Robert Browne for the creation of BERC and The Review as did the black nationalist programs and conferences of that era. During his eleven year tenure as Director at BERC, he pioneered ground-breaking research on the status of black-owned land in the south; consulted with community development corporations, black-owned businesses and banks; and prompted innovations in modern black philanthropy through the establishment of the Twenty-First Century Foundation. The origin and justification for The Review of Black Political Economy and the early activities and meetings of the Caucus and NEA are emphasized. In addition, an effort is made to include an enumeration of the earliest contributors to BERC, the NEA, and The Review — many of whom have not been mentioned in previous retrospectives.     

Substantive Black Political Representation: Evidence from Matching Estimates in the United States House of Representatives

I seek to determine whether race is a factor in how black representatives vote in the United States House of Representatives; if so, this suggests electing more black representatives may improve the economic and political position of blacks if policy positions taken by black representatives on bills that fail to pass would provide tangible positive impacts to members of the black community if passed. Confounding the impact of legislator race, districts represented by blacks on average are quite different than those represented by whites. While past research on this topic uses linear regression techniques with undesirable properties, I improve on past research using matching techniques with more desirable properties. Utilizing a combination of Mahalanobis and propensity score matching, within-caliper matching, and exact matching using data from the 100th–113th Congress, I show black representatives are more likely to vote in agreement with the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus on all votes and on Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Americans for Democratic Action, and Congressional Quarterly key votes, indicating a substantive racial impact on roll-call voting.     

NEA Presidential Address: Black Economists of the World You Cite!!

Economists who publish research in the economics and political economy of race seem averse to citing similar research by black economists. As citations are an important determinant of success as a research economist, black economists can possibly offset the aversion of non-black economists in citing black economists, by citing black economists themselves. This NEA Presidential address considers the relevance of black economist citations, and evaluates the extent to which black economists cite other black economists.

The Causal Effects of Participation in the American Economic Association Summer Minority Program

This article examines whether participation by underrepresented minority groups in the American Economics Association Summer Minority Program (AEASMP) has causal effects on outcomes associated with success as academic economists. We estimate both propensity score weighted and Heckit parameter estimates of (1) the average effect of treatment and (2) the effect of treatment on the treated. Our results, which vary across specifications of potential outcomes and propensity score truncated samples, suggest that AEASMP participation by black American Ph.D. economists has a positive and causal impact on 4 outcomes associated with success as an academic economist. However if the probability of selection into the treatment by the nontreated is similar to that of the treated, the results suggest that AEASMP participation by black American Ph.D. economists has a positive and causal effect on research productivity and in gaining access to research funding.     

The relative quality of black economists

This paper identifies the top black economists and ranks them in terms of their quality. The measure used as the indicator of quality is the number of citations received by an individual economist. It is argued that citations represent influence in that they reflect the degree to which others have found that work to be useful in their research and are an indication of the amount of recognition an economist’s research has received. Using citation tabulations as the measure of quality, the rankings of the top twenty economists were calculated.     

Economics Faculty Research at Teaching Institutions: Are Historically Black Colleges Different?

This paper examines the difference in research output of economics departments at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and non-HBCUs that are teaching institutions. We also examine the causal relationship between economics faculty research and the number of an institution's baccalaureate graduates who earn doctorates in economics. Our findings suggest that economics departments at HBCUs produce less research output relative to non-HBCUs. However, research output is equally effective in producing economics doctorates at both types of institutions. These findings suggest that a plausible way to increase the stock of black Ph.D. economists is to increase economics research at HBCUs.     

Co-Morbidity and Other Complexities Affecting Black Women’s Health

This paper presents some of the major health concerns that affect black women, and examines how various individual health problems co-exist and coincide to create complex health concerns for women. It posits the idea that to effectively address a Black woman’s health, her mental, emotional, social, economic and even spiritual health must be considered as well as her physical condition. The paper focuses largely on the information from individual health-related research presentations at “The Invisible Woman” conference held at Bennett College in March 18–19, 2011 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At this event, scholars presented new research on HIV, obesity and mental health—three areas of critical concern for African–American women—examining ways in which these conditions affect Black women. The paper also addresses the role of health care access and policy in addressing these and other health concerns among women and within the black community. The review of the literature highlights the importance of examining health—perhaps especially Black women’s health—from social, cultural, behavioral, environmental and economic perspectives. It also points out the continued need for research that includes women and people of color.     

Black Progress Through Business Improvement: Two Articles by Joseph R. Houchins, 1900-1989

In the spirit of further expanding the heretofore unsung contributions of African American economists, we present two unpublished works from the 1930s of Joseph Roosevelt Houchins. They focus on Black business development and strategy. Biographical information and historical context for Houchins’s life experiences during the twentieth century are included in an introduction. Houchins was a member of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet, a leader of the Division of Negro Affairs in the U.S. Department of Commerce, and a chair and professor of economics at Howard University. These two writings reflect a strategic effort to strengthen the efficiency and impact of Black business as an engine of Black progress. The first document presented here analyzes the high failure rate of Black-owned insurance companies, a mainstay of Black business especially in the 1920s and 30s. Houchins determined that their failure was due to several factors: lack of business knowledge; lack of access to capital; a tendency towards over-expenditure on office furnishings; and an over-identification with the clients, paying unjustified claims and failing to collect premiums on policies. The second document reports the results of a national survey that Houchins conducted to create a complete listing of Black chambers of commerce that could be used for intra-racial communication and mutual support. Both documents resonate today as the struggle for Black progress continues.     

Nea presidential address, 1993: Why black economists?

This article looks, with humor, at the role of black economists in academia and in the economics profession.     

Academic Pay in the United Kingdom and the United States: The Differential Returns to Productivity and the Lifetime Earnings Gap

This paper estimates earnings functions for two samples of U.K. and U.S. academic economists. Despite significant differences in compensation schemes, a comparably specified human capital earnings model does a good job explaining earnings variations for academic economists in both countries. Our estimates suggest that rewards for research are more immediate and direct in the United States. Because of the national salary scale, the payoffs to experience and seniority are greater and the payoffs to research are lower in the United Kingdom than in the United States. After adjusting for productivity and demographic factors, we find that U.S. economists are paid approximately 40% more than otherwise equivalent economists in the United Kingdom. Simulating career age-earnings profiles for both markets, we find that the earnings gap widens with experience for relatively productive research economists and may even narrow with age for relatively less productive research economists. Nevertheless, the cumulative lifetime earnings foregone are substantial for research and nonresearch economists in the United Kingdom.     

Black women and labor force participation: An analysis of sluggish growth rates

The labor force participation rate of black women has not increased as fast as that of white women in spite of the fact that black females have the characteristics economists have found most encourage participation. Also black women at all socioeconomic levels have more positive attitudes towards labor market activity. The explanation for the failure for their work rates to grow as fast as those of white women appears to be inadequate employment opportunities for black women from lower socioeconomic groups. Education in or of itself, however, is not the solution to the problem because education yields lower returns to black women with limited schooling than is true for comparable whites. Any strategy devised to solve these employment inequities must address the low relative demand for these workers.     

The gift of Chaos: An opportunity for the Nation’s Black Economists

This address presents a strategy for black economists, who can serve as catalysts for thoughtful discussions about future directions for our nation. The strategy is posed for two areas: health care and affirmative action policy.     

Black power and state welfare policy

Conclusions The three strategies for the black movement are centered on black individual development resources, black capitalist resources, and political violence. The conflicts between the theorists of each strategy have been major. This study indicates that although black individual development, black capitalist, and black violence strategies are ideologically opposed, each one, nevertheless, has an influence on welfare policy. Black individual and violence resources influence Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments; black capitalist and violence resources influence the number of Aid to Families with Dependent Children recipients. These results suggest that there are a variety of means to social change even though there are ideological disputes about the values of each approach.     

The Incredible Shrinking Black Woman: Implications of Health Policies

Black American women are shrinking in height at a faster rate than other groups, a phenomenon that has consequences for the physical health and economic well-being of black females. Relative to the cohort born from 1955 to 1974, the most recent cohort (1970–1986) of black American women and girls have lost more than half an inch (approximately 0.56) in height. Adult height is a measure of net nutrition acquired during childhood and adolescence and is correlated with a wide variety of economic and health outcomes. Simultaneously, the body mass index (BMI) among blacks has also increased at a faster rate than whites in both the periods of 1988–1994 (1.06 kg/m2) and 1999–2002. Black women and girls, in particular, experienced the greatest increase in BMI since the 1990s. Evidence that black American women are shrinking and BMI is growing highlights the need to examine the nutritional intake of black girls during childhood and adolescence; early nutritional deficiencies have persistent impact over their life course. In this policy brief, we consider several public health policy interventions that affect black girls’ nutritional intake across the life course, particularly during childhood and adolescence.     

An Analysis of Perceptions of Job Insecurity among White and Black Workers in the United States: 1977–2012

While objective measures indicate that the risk of job loss is higher for black workers than for white workers, there is little research on how what workers’ expectations of job loss differ by race. This study looks at how secure black and white workers are feeling about their jobs and how their perceptions of job insecurity have been affected by time trends and regional unemployment rates. I find that perceptions of job security of black male workers, older black workers, and black high school graduates have deteriorated relative to their white counterparts during the period 1977–2012. Among those who attended college, white workers’ perceived job insecurity has increased. Black blue-collar workers’ and construction workers’ perceptions of job insecurity also have increased relative to their white counterparts. Moreover, perceptions of job insecurity among several black groups, such as high school dropouts and old workers, are more sensitive to regional unemployment rates than their white counterparts.     

Social capital of black business owners

Analysis of data from the 1982Characteristics of Business Owners Survey reveals that there are some differences between the social capital (social resources available from group support networks) of black business owners and those of other ethnic groups. Black owners have had less exposure to entrepreneurial role models and training in firms run by close relatives than Asian, Hispanic, or nonminority male owners. They do not rely on their relatives or friends for business loans to the same extent as Asians, and show less such reliance than the other groups as well. Black owners compare favorably with Hispanics and nonminority males in using family funds as a source of nonborrowed capital, but are behind Asians. Black firms are relatively more likely to sell to minority customers and hire minority employees. Finally, black owners are the least likely to be married, which indicates some diminished help from the family, a key institution in group support networks.     

Trends in Job Quality for African-American Workers, 1979–2011

Economists expect that increases in education and work experience will increase workers’ productivity and translate into higher compensation. We use data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) to show that over the past four decades, the “human capital” of the employed black workforce has increased enormously, yet the share of black workers in a “good job” --one that pays at least $19 per hour (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars), has employer-provided health insurance, and an employer-sponsored retirement plan-- has actually declined. The CPS data show that black women saw a modest increase in access to “good jobs,” but the share of black men in good jobs decreased. Despite improvements for black women, they were consistently less likely to be in a good job than black men in every year in our sample. Black workers at every age and education level were also less likely to be in a good job in 2011 than they were in 1979.     

Unraveling the Academic Productivity of Economists: The Opportunity Costs of Teaching and Service

This study investigates the relationships among research productivity, teaching, and service on the basis of individual-specific information involving approximately 715 academic economists. Responding to an online survey, these economists provided information regarding their teaching and service commitments as well as personal and institutional information. The publication record of each respondent was then obtained from EconLit. Together, these data constitute a rich field for the systematic study of research productivity. Results of a Tobit analysis reveal much about the nature of research productivity, underscoring, for instance, the importance of gender, coauthorship, presentations at conferences, and peers who publish. Among the more important findings from this analysis is that both teaching and service commitments have a significantly negative impact on the research productivity of academic economists. These relations hold across types of academic employer, though to varying degrees. Taken together, the results provide interesting insights into the roles of academic scholars, teachers, and colleagues.