Black enterprise and the legacy of slavery

The 1997 Economic Census data on minority and women-owned businesses reveals distinct cross-state and cross-county differences in ownership characteristics. The breakdown of this data into racial groups provides the opportunity to study the geographical features of black enterprise. As will be seen, both in aggregate and across states and counties, significant differences exist in the prevalence and magnitude of black and white enterprise. I propose a "legacy of slavery" hypothesis to explain these observed differences. Preliminary analysis indicates that this hypothesis has considerable explanatory power. A significant negative relationship exists between the geographical concentration of slavery in 1840 and the current prevalence and magnitude of black-owned enterprise. At the state level, this relationship remains even after controlling for the normal business climate as indicated by white enterprise levels. County level regressions with state fixed-effects yield similar estimated coefficients. In total, I find that the legacy of slavery has reduced the number of black-owned businesses by at least 71,009 and sales by $27.3 billion per year.     

Do black-owned businesses employ minority workers? new evidence

Most of the workers employed by black-owned businesses are minorities. This pattern typifies small firms as well as large firms, firms in blue collar industries such as construction as well as in white collar industries such as finance. The hypothesis that reliance upon minority workers may restrict the viability of black firms is tested and rejected; there appears to be no relationship between firm viability and labor force racial composition.     

Racial steering by real estate agents: Mechanisms and motives

Data from fair housing audits conducted in Cincinnati (1983–85) and Memphis (1985–87) are analyzed to discern whether and how racial steering occurs. The six real estate firms analyzed here engaged in some sort of steering during at least one-half of the audited transactions, on average. This steering did not limit the number of alternative areas shown to black auditors, nor their geographic concentration. Rarely were black auditors not shown dwellings in predominantly white areas, especially if they requested such. But of all the homes they saw, black auditors were shown significantly smaller fractions in predominantly white areas, and significantly larger fractions in mixed and predominantly black areas. These racial patterns persisted regardless of the geographic definition of area chosen: census block, census tract, school district, or community. In addition, blocks adjacent to the homes shown black auditors had higher percentages of black residents, on average, than those shown to white auditors. White auditors rarely were shown houses in racially mixed areas unless they requested them. Even then, after the requested home was shown the bulk of subsequent showings were located in predominantly white areas. This pattern of showings was buttressed by numerous favorable comments by agents about such predominantly white areas and school districts . . . comments that were rarely given to black auditors. The evidence was fully consistent with only one hypothesis about why real estate agents steer. They steer so as to perpetuate two segregated housing markets buffered by a zone of racially transitional neighborhoods, thereby maximizing housing turnover and agents’ commissions.     

The Plight of African American Women: Employed and Unemployed

Understanding employment for African American women through the lens of neoclassical economics may not be best to help understand their plight. Their pay and the available employment has not been equal to that of men and even more so, African American women have lower paying jobs compared to their white counterparts, despite their achievement of higher levels of education. This paper looks at unemployment rates across the nation and then centers the discussion on black women in the context of the disparities over the past three decades. It combines the types of employment and wages that they have endured in context to white women during the same period of time. It uses Geographical Information Systems to underscore the concentration of income and race and the types of employment in those areas. It then provides some policy recommendations for the future.     

Job characteristics and the labor force participation behavior of black and white male youth

Previous work regarding the labor force participation of black and white youth has ignored the fact that they may face jobs with different characteristics, such as socioeconomic status or degree of danger. This article examines the effects that such characteristics have on the probability of participation for a sample of black and white males from the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort. The results suggest that some job characteristics have a significant impact on participation, particularly socioeconomic status. The estimates presented here suggest, however, that racial differences in socioeconomic status probably explain only a small portion of the black-white male youth participation rate differential.     

Trends in relative earnings gains by black women: Implications for the future

The current article argues that the labor pattern of black women may be properly viewed within a trisectoral segmentation of the labor market. A three-phase characterization of their relative earnings behavior over the postwar period is implied. Empirical evidence lends support to the basic hypothesis of an acceleration in black female earnings growth, relative to white males and females, during the intermediate post-1964 period, but a decline thereafter. The quadratic trend model and its logistic transformation were found to fit the earnings patterns rather well. Projections based upon these models suggest that present trends do not bode well for major gains in black female median earnings relative to those of white men and women in the near future.     

Trends in energy expenditures by black households

Summary This paper presents an analysis of the projected trends in direct energy expenditures among black and white households classified by location, age, and sex of the household head, and income. Estimates of changes in the distribution of energy expenditures among groups of Black and white households are compared for 1974 and 1985. On the average, black households have lower income, larger families, drive older cars, and live in older and less energy-efficient homes. The analysis pursued here is intended to show how these determinants of energy consumption are reflected in black/white comparisons of energy expenditures. The 1985 projections are based on the mid-term 1985 energy Projection Series A through F prepared by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) for its 1977 Annual Report to Congress. The EIA energy Projection Series were based on differing assumptions with regard to: (1) growth rates of economic activity; (2) the probable levels of recoverable U.S. oil and gas resources; and (3) oil import prices. Then present energy policy was assumed to continue. This analysis utilizes a microsimulation approach to project household energy expenditures and other household energyrelated variables.     

The myths,facts, and theories of ethnic,small-scale enterprise financing

This article combines the results of three financial studies that examine capital issues affecting minority business development. The results are presented so as to explain or refute conventional wisdom regarding capital availability, cost of capital, credit market discrimination, sources of capital and differences in firm capital composition. Generally, Asian and Hispanic businesses more approximate nonminority businesses in the sources of capital, the cost of capital, total capital investment, and access to capital. Black firms, on the other hand, face credit discrimination from all sources of capital, which limits their access to capital, increases its cost, and affects firm profitability. Consequently, black firms have a smaller capital composition at startup and during operations. The only deviation from this pattern occurs where minority and nonminority financial institutions vie for black business patronage by reducing the cost of borrowing and increasing the availability of funds.     

The vintage schooling hypothesis and racial differences in earnings and on-the-job training: A longitudinal analysis

Why do younger black males earn more relative to whites than do older black males? The literature offers two competing explanations. Smith and Welch suggest this pattern is evidence that employers are rewarding the improved skills of more recently, better-educated blacks. Lazear, and Duncan and Hoffman suggest that the pattern is the result of employer discrimination that prevents blacks from entering occupations that offer on-the-job training (OJT) and wage growth with experience. The competing views are tested by using the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Young Men to compare black and white earnings and regression estimates in two periods. Regression results for 1968 and 1978 indicate that, as the NLS cohort aged, only white males had an age-earnings profile exhibiting the positive effect of OJT. Over the period, education coefficients decreased for both groups with the reduction greatest in black coefficients. This suggests that the earnings effect of education is not as stable for blacks as it is for whites over the life cycle. Black-white earnings ratios were approximately the same in both periods. The results reported here support the explanations offered by Lazear and by Duncan and Hoffman, implying that policies focusing on eliminating racial differences in educational quality may be insufficient in improving the relative position of blacks over the life cycle.     

The impact of demand management policies on black vs. white employment

This article uses vector autoregression analysis to examine the relative impacts on black and white employment growth of monetary and fiscal actions. It was found that the employment responses to anticipated policy actions, while significant, were generally short-lived, with the exception of the effects of anticipated money growth on white employment. The influences of unanticipated policy changes are of a longer duration. The predominant finding in which black employment growth responded differently from white employment growth was in response to a monetary shock. The black employment response was sharply negative while the white employment response was a gradual increase over nine quarters. The results indicate that this difference occurred only during the 1980s and not in the 1970s and suggests that the effects of bank failures and credit rationing during this period may have significantly hurt minority employment opportunities.     

Why should black-owned businesses hire predominately black labor forces?

In the past, black-owned businesses appear to have hired a predominately black labor force. This article questions if incentives exist for them to continue to do so in the future. Various discrimination incentives are discussed and largely dismissed. It is concluded that the qualifications for gaining access to set-aside contracts and subsidies do provide incentives for black-owned businesses to hire a predominately black labor force.     

Community businesses are their aims confused?

Glen Buchanan has given a chilling outline of the conditions from which community businesses have arisen, and communicated something of the idealism of their genesis. Mike Jacobs shares the ideals, but is worried by the way in which they are expressed. He writes: “Glen claims that community businesses are 'completely different' from public and private sector companies. I think they could be, but the way Glen describes them they are probably not.”     

Racial differences in the unemployment response to structural changes in local labor markets

This analysis uses establishment-level data on job creation and destruction to examine the unemployment rate responses of black, Hispanic and white workers to shifts in demand across firms and industries during the period 1980–84. Black unemployment rates are significantly more responsive to differences in aggregate demand growth and wage flexibility than are white and Hispanic unemployment rates, and they are also more severely impacted by structural changes in labor demand than are white and Hispanic unemployment rates. Additional research using the measures and focus of the present analysis that cover other time periods can assist in developing a clearer picture of the contemporary dynamics of urban labor markets and can provide guidance for public policy.     

The dilemma of black banking: Lending risks vs. community service

Black-owned banks face a serious dilemma: founded primarily to help fill the gap between the demand for and supply of credit to the black community, the more they try to respond positively, the greater is the probability that they will fail. The paradox arises from the exceptional risks these lenders must assume when they extend credit to individuals who suffer from above-average instability of employmenl and income, or to black-owned businesses, which have high rates of bankruptcy. The failure of Freedom National Bank in November 1990 illustrates the adverse consequences of assuming excessive risks.     

探索中小企业存在与发展的理论和现实意义

不论是在发展中国家还是在发达国家，中小企业近十几年来都得到充分发展，并对世界各国经济与社会发展起到重要作用。本试从经济理论与实际出发，分析中小企业存在与发展的原因和重要意义，以期望为我国中小企业发展战略与发展方向提供借鉴意义。     

Urban economic transformation and minority business opportunities

Conclusion In summary, this study hypothesized and found evidence of black business growth opportunities in business services, amenities, finance, and real estate. Decline of small-scale black retailing was hypothesized, but this decline was found to be much more apparent in snowbelt as opposed to sunbelt urban areas. Manufacturing was found to be surprisingly durable in the snowbelt and extraordinarily weak in the sunbelt, which is quite inconsistent with basic economic transformation trends operating in both regions. Weak performance in black-owned sunbelt manufacturing paralleled similar performance in sunbelt black-owned wholesaling. Sunbelt weaknesses in these two major industry groupings require explanation and would be appropriate topics for future research. Older central cities that once served as centers for industrial production are rapidly being transformed into cities where administrative and service functions are the dominant economic activities. Smaller, service-oriented firms are thriving in these cities, and minority-owned businesses appear to be major beneficiaries of this important urban trend. Finally, minority business development policies are most likely to be successful if they are complimentary to the basic long-term trends that are transforming urban America.     

Income inequities between black and white populations in southern nonmetropolitan counties

This article examines differences in the income status of black and white populations in Southern nonmetropolitan counties and discusses how various labor market, social, and human capital characteristics influence the income status of the respective groups. The data show an inconsistent pattern between black and white populations’ income level in Southern nonmetropolitan counties. The data also show that various structural/institutional (e.g., local labor market and human capital) and social/cultural (e.g., population) factors affect the income of black and white populations differently.     

Labor market racial discrimination against black women

Conclusion The data we have reviewed describe black women as having achieved parity with white women and indicate that this conclusion is not seriously affected after controlling for the direct and indirect effects of differences in time worked. However, the economic position of black women is not uniform throughout the economy. Black women have advanced primarily in public sector jobs and these advances have been made primarily by the youngest cohorts. Progress in the private sector has been much slower. Claims that a “new labor market” exists for black women ought to be carefully qualified, for their progress is impressive primarily when they are compared to white women—another disadvantaged group. Both groups of women are falling farther behind men in terms of relative earnings.16 Furthermore, it may be quite erroneous to interpret small differences in earnings between black and white women as evidence that black women do not suffer racial discrimination, as the following example illustrates.     

The measurement and interpretation of black wage and occupational gains: A Reevaluation

Conclusion Important changes have occurred in the economic situation of black Americans over the last two decades. The reported convergence in black and white wages and occupational positions are critically important to understand. An awareness of the tenacity of racism should not lead us to argue that reality is static. At the same time, it would be a mistake to draw extreme conclusions about the crumbling of one of the historical building blocks of the U.S. economy. This article has been particularly motivated by the latter concern.     

The Differential Effects of Output Shocks on Unemployment Rates by Race and Gender

This article employs a recently developed time-series econometric technique to examine the magnitude and persistence of unanticipated changes in real output on unemployment rates by race and gender. Through the use of generalized impulse response analysis, we measure the extent to which the behavior of unemployment rates of white males, black males, black females, and white females differ in response to real output shocks. The results suggest that, while real output growth reduces the unemployment rate of all demographic groups, the effect is larger and more persistent for blacks than whites and for males than for females. The findings are particularly important for understanding the demographic impacts of policy initiatives aimed at inducing changes in real output growth.