IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedcec/00095.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Is Behind the Persistence of the Racial Wealth Gap?

Author

Listed:
  • Dionissi Aliprantis
  • Daniel R. Carroll

Abstract

Most studies of the persistent gap in wealth between whites and blacks have investigated the large gap in income earned by the two groups. Those studies generally concluded that the wealth gap was ?too big? to be explained by differences in income. We study the issue using a different approach, capturing the dynamics of wealth accumulation over time. We find that the income gap is the primary driver behind the wealth gap and that it is large enough to explain the persistent difference in wealth accumulation. The key policy implication of our work is that policies designed to speed the closing of the racial wealth gap would do well to focus on closing the racial income gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Dionissi Aliprantis & Daniel R. Carroll, 2019. "What Is Behind the Persistence of the Racial Wealth Gap?," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue February.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:00095
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.clevelandfed.org/newsroom-and-events/publications/economic-commentary/2019-economic-commentaries/ec-201903-what-is-behind-the-persistence-of-the-racial-wealth-gap.aspx
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hero Ashman & Seth Neumuller, 2020. "Can Income Differences Explain the Racial Wealth Gap: A Quantitative Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 220-239, January.
    2. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Maggie R Jones & Sonya R Porter, 2020. "Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: an Intergenerational Perspective [“Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in the US Over Two Centuries,”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 711-783.
    3. Barsky R. & Bound J. & Charles K.K. & Lupton J.P., 2002. "Accounting for the Black-White Wealth Gap: A Nonparametric Approach," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 663-673, September.
    4. Dionissi Aliprantis & Daniel R. Carroll & Eric Young, 2019. "The Dynamics of the Racial Wealth Gap," Working Papers 19-18R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 29 Nov 2022.
    5. Aliprantis, Dionissi & Carroll, Daniel R. & Young, Eric R., 2024. "What explains neighborhood sorting by income and race?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    6. Menchik, Paul L & Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon, 1997. "Black-White Wealth Inequality: Is Inheritance the Reason?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 428-442, April.
    7. Maury Gittleman & Edward N. Wolff, 2004. "Racial Differences in Patterns of Wealth Accumulation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William Darity & Fenaba R. Addo & Imari Z. Smith, 2021. "A subaltern middle class: The case of the missing “Black bourgeoisie” in America," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 494-502, July.
    2. Kuhn, Moritz & Bartscher, Alina & Schularick, Moritz & Wachtel, Paul, 2021. "Monetary policy and racial inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 15734, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Jacob Hager & Barış Kaymak, 2023. "Racial Differences in Returns on Business Ownership," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2023(03), pages 1-6, February.
    4. Glei, Dana A. & Lee, Chioun & Weinstein, Maxine, 2022. "Income, wealth, and Black-White disparities in cognition," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hero Ashman & Seth Neumuller, 2020. "Can Income Differences Explain the Racial Wealth Gap: A Quantitative Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 220-239, January.
    2. Dionissi Aliprantis & Daniel R. Carroll & Eric Young, 2019. "The Dynamics of the Racial Wealth Gap," Working Papers 19-18R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 29 Nov 2022.
    3. Mariela Dal Borgo, 2019. "Ethnic and racial disparities in saving behavior," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(2), pages 253-283, June.
    4. Timothy F. Harris & Aaron Yelowitz, 2018. "Racial disparities in life insurance coverage," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 94-107, January.
    5. Scott Bowman, 2011. "Multigenerational Interactions in Black Middle Class Wealth and Asset Decision Making," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 15-26, March.
    6. Alexandra Killewald, 2013. "Return to Being Black, Living in the Red: A Race Gap in Wealth That Goes Beyond Social Origins," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(4), pages 1177-1195, August.
    7. John Gibson & Trinh Le & Steven Stillman, 2007. "What explains the wealth gap between immigrants and the New Zealand born?," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 131-162.
    8. Dionissi Aliprantis & Hal Martin & Kristen Tauber, 2020. "What Determines the Success of Housing Mobility Programs?," Working Papers 20-36R, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, revised 19 Oct 2022.
    9. repec:zbw:rwirep:0030 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Mathias Sinning, 2007. "Wealth and Asset Holdings of Immigrants in Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 0030, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    11. Nam, Yunju, 2020. "Parents’ financial assistance for college and black-white disparities in post-secondary educational attainment," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    12. Rendon, Silvio, 2007. "Does Wealth Explain BlackWhite Differences in Early Employment Careers?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 484-500, October.
    13. John Iceland & Arthur Sakamoto, 2022. "The Prevalence of Hardship by Race and Ethnicity in the USA, 1992–2019," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(5), pages 2001-2036, October.
    14. repec:zbw:rwirep:0006 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Sinning, Mathias, 2007. "Wealth and Asset Holdings of Immigrants in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 3089, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Joseph G. Altonji & Ulrich Doraszelski, 2005. "The Role of Permanent Income and Demographics in Black/White Differences in Wealth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    17. Job Boerma & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2023. "Reparations and Persistent Racial Wealth Gaps," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 171-221.
    18. Irene Ferrari, 2020. "The nativity wealth gap in Europe: a matching approach," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 33-77, January.
    19. Zhang Sisi & Feng Shuaizhang, 2017. "Understanding the Unequal Post-Great Recession Wealth Recovery for American Families," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 1-18, October.
    20. Thomas K. Bauer & Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand & Mathias G. Sinning, 2011. "A Comparative Analysis Of The Nativity Wealth Gap," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(4), pages 989-1007, October.
    21. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2006. "The Wealth of Mexican Americans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    22. Wong, Francis & Kermani, Amir, 2022. "Racial Disparities in Housing Returns," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264099, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:00095. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.