The Racial Gap in Education and the Legacy of Slavery

We study the evolution of racial educational inequality across US states from 1940 to 2000. Weshow that throughout this period, despite evidence of convergence, the racial gap in attainmentbetween blacks and whites has been persistently determined by the initial gap. We obtain theseresults with 2SLS estimates where slavery is used as an instrument for the initial gap. We addressthe question of the excludability of slavery by instrumenting it with the share of disembarked slavesfrom the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Using the same approach we also find that income growth isnegatively affected by the initial racial gap in education and that slavery affects growth indirectlythrough this channel.