Monday, February 28th, 2022
12:30 – 2:00 p.m. ET
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to the 17th webinar of the “Facing Inequality” series, hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy and co-sponsored by the GW Interdisciplinary Inequality Series. In this webinar, noted economic historian Trevon Logan discussed his research on “Black Politicians During Reconstruction: Impacts and Backlashes.” Shari Eli, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto, provided discussant remarks, and IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh moderated the discussion.

Racial economic inequality in the United States has substantial roots in history, including not just race-based slavery, but also the failure to move to more equal footing after the Civil War. In this event, Trevon Logan will present results from two papers: “Do Black Politicians Matter?” and “Whitelashing: Black Politicians, Taxes, and Violence.” In this work, he demonstrates the important impact of Black politicians after the war in the Reconstruction South; their presence increased tax revenue and land tenancy, and decreased the black-white literacy gap. He also finds that such increases in tax revenue were followed by a rise in violence against Black politicians, pushing back on the efficacy of these policymakers.

The “Facing Inequality” virtual series focuses on current and emerging inequality issues in the U.S. and around the globe – especially those revealed by the current COVID-19 pandemic. It brings together historians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and epidemiologists, within the academy and without, to present work and discuss ideas that can facilitate new interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of inequality. This is a platform for dialogue and debate. We invite you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.

About the Speaker:

Trevon Logan is the Hazel C. Youngberg Distinguished Professor of Economics at The Ohio State University. Professor Logan specializes in economic history, economic demography and applied microeconomics. His research in economic history concerns the development of living standards measures that can be used to directly assess the question of how the human condition has changed over time. He applies the techniques of contemporary living standard measurements to the past as a means of deriving consistent estimates of well-being over time. Most of his historical work uses historical household surveys, but also includes some new data to look at topics such as the returns to education in the early twentieth century, the formation of tastes, and the allocation of resources within the household. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

About the Discussant:

Shari Eli is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her fields of research are economic history, health economics and demography. One section of her research explores the ways in which individuals of low socioeconomic status used cash transfers to improve their health status over the course of the lifecycle. Another section explores the intergenerational persistence of welfare receipt as well as the relationship between social assistance and marriage decisions.

John J. Clegg is an historical sociologist working on the roots of mass incarceration in the United States and the comparative political economy of slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic world.

His dissertation, “From Slavery to Jim Crow: Essays on the Political Economy of Racial Capitalism” (NYU 2018) traced the evolution of forms of labor control and racialization across America’s pivotal decade of Civil War and emancipation.

He is currently working on a comprehensive crowd-sourced database of African American Civil War soldiers as well as a large scale research project on the political economy of mass incarceration.

His work has appeared in The Cambridge Journal of Economics, Social Science History, Critical Historical Studies, Global Labor Journal, The Brooklyn Rail, The SAGE Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory and The Best American Non-required Reading 2016.

About the Moderator:

Jay Shambaugh is a Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. His area of research is macroeconomics and international economics. He has had two stints in public service. He served as a Member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors from 2015-2017. Earlier, he served on the staff of the CEA as a Senior Economist for International Economics and then as the Chief Economist. He also spent 3 years as the Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. Jay is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER and Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington, Jay taught at Georgetown and Dartmouth and was a visiting scholar at the IMF. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts, and a B.A. from Yale University.