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The Evolution of Access to Public Accommodations in the United States

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  • Lisa D Cook
  • Maggie E C Jones
  • Trevon D Logan
  • David Rosé

Abstract

The economic analysis of racial discrimination in public accommodations is remarkably limited. To study this issue, we construct a national data set of nondiscriminatory establishments from the Negro Motorist Green Books, a travel guide published from 1936 to 1966 to aid Black Americans in finding nondiscriminatory retail and service establishments. We document patterns in the geographic spread and evolution of Green Book establishments, as well as the correlates of Green Book presence. We find that economic and social measures, as well as state laws relating to racial discrimination and antidiscrimination, were correlated with the provision of nondiscriminatory services. We then use the Green Book data to test whether market conditions and white consumer discrimination led businesses to bar Black customers prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We use plausibly exogenous variation from white World War II casualties and Black migration patterns to isolate the effect of a change in the racial composition of consumers on the growth of nondiscriminatory businesses. We find that the share of nondiscriminatory establishments grew faster in locations with larger increases in the share of the Black population, but the magnitudes were small. These results highlight the importance of federal legislation in ending racial discrimination in public accommodations.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa D Cook & Maggie E C Jones & Trevon D Logan & David Rosé, 2023. "The Evolution of Access to Public Accommodations in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 37-102.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:138:y:2023:i:1:p:37-102.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjac035
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    Cited by:

    1. Jung, Suhyun & Rogers, Martha, 2024. "Mobile phone adoption, deforestation, and agricultural land use in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    2. Bernini, Andrea & Facchini, Giovanni & Tabellini, Marco & Testa, Cecilia, 2023. "Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act," CEPR Discussion Papers 18238, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Alex Armand & Paul Atwell & Joseph F. Gomes & Yannik Schenk, 2023. "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman! Using mass media to fight intolerance," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp2302, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    4. Chiplunkar, Gaurav & Weaver, Jeffrey, 2023. "Marriage markets and the rise of dowry in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    5. Amegashie, J．Atsu, 2023. "Market segregation in the presence of customer discrimination," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    6. Daniel Aaronson & Mark Borgschulte & Sunny Liu & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2024. "Schooling and Political Activism in the Early Civil Rights Era," Working Paper Series WP 2024-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    7. Jones, Maggie E.C. & Logan, Trevon D. & Rosé, David & Cook, Lisa D., 2024. "Black-Friendly businesses in cities during the Civil Rights Era," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    8. J. Atsu Amegashie, 2023. "Market Segregation in the Presence of Customer Discrimination," CESifo Working Paper Series 10453, CESifo.
    9. Richard Freund, 2023. "From drought to distress: unpacking the mental health effects of water scarcity," CSAE Working Paper Series 2023-07, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    10. Lucas Zhang, 2024. "Continuous difference-in-differences with double/debiased machine learning," Papers 2408.10509, arXiv.org.

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