The authors find that policies that marry reparations with ones targeting portfolio composition changes could one day lead to a convergence in White and Black wealth, but it could take hundreds of years.
“Nevertheless, we argue these approaches are complementary, as policies that redistribute stocks of wealth without addressing racial gaps in savings and capital gains have but a transient effect on the wealth gap,” they wrote.
The Federal Reserve has published wealth data by race since 1989, but not much data is available before that. The economists created their dataset, which dates back to 1860, in part by using census figures and by digitizing 50 years’ worth of southern state tax reports.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.