IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jleorg/v35y2019i2p289-318..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collective Action, White Flight, and the Origins of Racial Zoning Laws

Author

Listed:
  • Werner Troesken
  • Randall Walsh

Abstract

This article develops and tests a simple model to explain a watershed moment in the history of residential segregation: the passage of municipal segregation ordinances. Passed by American cities between 1909 and 1917, these ordinances were the first formal laws in American history designed to segregate city neighborhoods along racial lines. The ordinances prohibited whites (blacks) on a given city block from selling or renting property to blacks (whites). We argue that prior to these ordinances, cities sustained residential segregation through private norms and vigilante activity. Only when these private arrangements began to break down during the early 1900s did whites start lobbying municipal governments for segregation ordinances.

Suggested Citation

  • Werner Troesken & Randall Walsh, 2019. "Collective Action, White Flight, and the Origins of Racial Zoning Laws," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 289-318.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jleorg:v:35:y:2019:i:2:p:289-318.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jleo/ewz006
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Besley, 2013. "Implementation of Anti-Discrimination Policy: Does Judicial Selection Matter?," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 15(1), pages 212-251.
    2. Carlos Berdejó & Noam Yuchtman, 2013. "Crime, Punishment, and Politics: An Analysis of Political Cycles in Criminal Sentencing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 741-756, July.
    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. Trevor Kollmann & Simone Marsiglio & Sandy Suardi & Marco Tolotti, 2021. "Social interactions, residential segregation and the dynamics of tipping," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 1355-1388, September.
    2. Jamie Bologna Pavlik & Yang Zhou, 2023. "Are historic districts a backdoor for segregation? Yes and no," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(3), pages 415-434, July.
    3. Fishback, Price & Rose, Jonathan & Snowden, Kenneth A. & Storrs, Thomas, 2024. "New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Xia, Fangzhou & Lu, Pingzhen, 2023. "Can mixed land use promote social integration? Multiple mediator analysis based on spatiotemporal big data in Beijing," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    5. Shertzer, Allison & Twinam, Tate & Walsh, Randall P., 2022. "Zoning and segregation in urban economic history," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Prottoy A. Akbar & Sijie Li & Allison Shertzer & Randall P. Walsh, 2019. "Racial Segregation in Housing Markets and the Erosion of Black Wealth," NBER Working Papers 25805, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Walker Wright, 2022. "Illiberal economic institutions and racial intolerance in the United States," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 307-326, June.

    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. Ash, Elliott & MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2021. "Reducing partisanship in judicial elections can improve judge quality: Evidence from U.S. state supreme courts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    2. Mark Partridge & Tim Sass, 2011. "The productivity of elected and appointed officials: the case of school superintendents," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 133-149, October.
    3. Ruben Enikolopov, 2011. "Are Bureaucrats Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," Working Papers w0165, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    4. Shabana Mitra & Althaf Shajahan, 2022. "Crime, elections, and political competition," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 2394-2413, November.
    5. Christian Dippel & Michael Poyker, 2019. "How Common are Electoral Cycles in Criminal Sentencing?," NBER Working Papers 25716, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Gregory DeAngelo & Bryan C. McCannon, 2019. "Political competition in judge and prosecutor elections," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 167-193, October.
    7. Simone Bertoli & Morgane Laouenan & Jérôme Valette, 2022. "Border Apprehensions and Federal Sentencing of Hispanic Citizens in the United States," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03818735, HAL.
    8. Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati & Francesco Sobbrio, 2020. "The Political Cost of Being Soft on Crime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3305-3336.
    9. Yohei Yamaguchi & Ken Yahagi, 2024. "Law enforcement and political misinformation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(1), pages 3-36, January.
    10. Ruben Enikolopov, 2010. "Politicians, Bureaucrats and Targeted Redistribution: The Role of Career Concerns," Working Papers w0148, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    11. Chen, Daniel L., 2016. "Priming Ideology: Why Presidential Elections Affect U.S. Judges," TSE Working Papers 16-681, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Aug 2016.
    12. Julia Godfrey & Kegon Teng Kok Tan & Mariyana Zapryanova, 2023. "The Effect of Parole Board Racial Composition on Prisoner Outcomes," Working Papers 2023-011, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    13. Osvaldo Meloni, 2018. "s there an electorally-motivated crime rate cycle? Evidence from Argentina," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 1102-1110.
    14. Eric Langlais & Marie Obidzinski, 2013. "Elected vs appointed public law enforcers," Working Papers hal-04141175, HAL.
    15. Alma Cohen & Zvika Neeman & Florian Auferoth, 2024. "Judging under Public Pressure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(1), pages 151-166, January.
    16. Éric Langlais & Marie Obidzinski, 2015. "Public law enforcers and political competition," EconomiX Working Papers 2015-40, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    17. Aurelie Ouss & Alexander Peysakhovich, 2015. "When Punishment Doesn't Pay: "Cold Glow" and Decisions to Punish," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    18. d'Este, Rocco & Yuchtman, Noam, 2023. "Correcting Racial Injustice: Forensic DNA Technology and the Exoneration of the Wrongfully Convicted," IZA Discussion Papers 16076, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Iaryczower, Matias & Lewis, Garrett & Shum, Matthew, 2013. "To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 230-244.
    20. Yahagi, Ken & Yamaguchi, Yohei, 2023. "Law enforcement with rent-seeking government under voting pressure," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • N32 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N92 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • R30 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - General

    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:oup:jleorg:v:35:y:2019:i:2:p:289-318.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jleo .

    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.