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Title: Did the War on Poverty Cause Race Riots?
Citation Type: Conference Paper
Publication Year: 2009
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Abstract: The launch of the War on Poverty and the race-related riots in American cities were both key events in the 1960s and it has been suggested that there may exist a relationship between the two. From their inception in 1964, community action agencies (CAAs) were directed towards alleviating poverty, but by the late 1960s, they had become an explicitly anti-riot program. Some authors and officials, however, have argued that the CAAs, in fact, triggered the riots. I employ an instrumental variables strategy, in a city-level cross-sectional analysis, to determine the causal impact of CAA spending on riot occurrence and severity. I take advantage of the targeting of federal funds to close electoral races in this strategy. I construct indices for 1964 and 1966 for each city based on the share of the city's counties in which the difference in the vote total between Democrats and Republicans in house elections was less then five percent of the total. These indices are used as instruments, as they are found to determine CAA outlays, but not riot occurrence other than through outlay provision. In addition, I present a semi-parametric monthly panel analysis of riot occurrence. Spending on CAAs is found to have decreased both the likelihood and the severity of the riots.
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Authors: Gillezeau, Rob
Conference Name: Canadian Network for Economic History
Publisher Location: Halifax, NS, Canada
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