Working Paper
Blockbusting and the Challenges Faced by Black Families in Building Wealth Through Housing in the Postwar United States
Rose, Jonathan D.; Hartley, Daniel (2023-01-09)
We study the impacts of blockbusting, i.e. large-scale racial turnover of urban neighborhoods orchestrated by real estate professionals using aggressive and discriminatory practices. In a panel of census tracts across large cities in the postwar United States, we compare tracts subjected to blockbusting activity to similar neighboring tracts not subjected to blockbusting. We find that blockbusting caused substantially lower house values over the next few decades. To understand the mechanisms behind this effect, we analyze property-level data in one neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. We find ...
Working Paper Series , Paper WP 2023-02

Briefing
A More Comprehensive Measure of the Black-White Wealth Gap
Jones, John Bailey; Neelakantan, Urvi (2022-05)
In this article, we apply a simple graphical device — the plot of the relative rank distribution — to summarize the Black-White wealth gap. We also introduce the relative rank Gini coefficient — an analog to the standard Gini coefficient — as a summary measure of rank inequality. We find that the rank wealth gap is widest in the middle of the wealth distribution. Black-White rank wealth gaps are higher among college graduates than among other education groups. Households with young or retired heads have higher rank gaps than middle-aged households. We caution that rank gaps are not ...
Richmond Fed Economic Brief , Volume 22 , Issue 17

Briefing
How Big Is the Inheritance Gap Between Black and White Families?
Jones, John Bailey; Neelakantan, Urvi (2022-12)
One of the most striking differences between Black and White households is a large disparity in wealth. A potential source of this gap is differences in transfers of wealth within families through bequests or gifts. In this article, we document who receives such transfers and the distribution of transfers among those who receive them. Black individuals are much less likely to receive any inheritances or gifts. Black recipients receive smaller amounts and have a much lower probability of extremely large transfers.
Richmond Fed Economic Brief , Volume 22 , Issue 49