When the Levee Breaks: Black Migration and Economic Development in the American South

Abstract

In the American South, postbellum economic development may have been restricted in part by white landowners' access to low-wage black labor. This paper examines the impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 on black out-migration and subsequent agricultural development. Flooded counties experienced an immediate and persistent out-migration of black population. Over time, landowners in flooded counties modernized agricultural production and increased its capital intensity relative to landowners in nearby similar non-flooded counties. Landowners resisted black out-migration, however, benefiting from the status quo system of labor-intensive agricultural production. (JEL J15, J43, N32, N52, N92, Q54, R23)

Shaking Up the Equilibrium: Natural Disasters, Economic Activity, and Immigration

“…On the other hand, the theories of economic geography that are based on scale economies state that small cities are indeed small because of the low degree of scale economies associated with the production processes in these cities. Consistent with our empirical findings, these theories predict that a shock which temporarily pushes people around between small cities/towns, would have insignificant (if any) long-run e↵ects on the population 10 This finding is in line with empirical studies on the economic consequences of natural disasters in the United States during the first half of the 20th century, documenting that people moved away from the a↵ected areas as a response to the shock (Boustan et al, 2012;Hornbeck, 2012;Hornbeck and Naidu, 2014).…”

“…To provide evidence in support of this hypothesis, we study the settlement patterns of migrants arriving to the American West around the time of the earthquake, since these people were arguably less likely to have strong ties to specific places in counties of the American West (see Section 4.3). 6 For other studies using this type of empirical strategy, see, e.g., Bleakley (2007), Nunn andQian (2011), Hornbeck (2012), Hornbeck and Naidu (2014), Kline and Moretti (2014), and .…”

Household Finance after a Natural Disaster: The Case of Hurricane Katrina

“…A growing literature on the impact of natural disasters on subsequent economic growth highlights the role of investment in capital and how lenders facilitate that investment (e.g. Morse [2011] and Hornbeck and Naidu [2014]). The location of a lender in relation to the location of the natural disaster can have an impact on the lender's response (Hosono et al [2012]; Chavaz [2014]).…”

The impact of climate on the law of one price: A test using North American food prices from the 1920s

“…One source of local variation could be regional differences in climate in general and weather variability in particular. We are not referring to extreme weather events that create long-term changes (Boustan et al 2012, Hornbeck 2012, Hornbeck and Naidu 2014. It is the general variability in weather as a climate characteristic of a location that is the channel for local productivity differences.…”