The Review of Black Political Economy

The National Economic Association introduced the W. Arthur Lewis Distinguished Lecture series in December 1985. The Lewis Lecture is named in honor of the 1979 Nobel Laureate in Economics, much of whose research has been devoted to the problem of Third World economic development. A native of St. Lucia, in the former British West Indies, Arthur Lewis has risen to fame as the preeminent development economist of his generation. He is most famous for his 1954 Manchester School paper on economic development with unlimited supplies of labor, but his contributions span the fields of industrial organization, public finance, and international trade. He was one of the first to explore in depth the evidence on movements on terms of trade between industrialized and developing countries and was the first to perform a regression analysis in empirical trade research. Lewis was an active advisor to various governments in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia during the development decades. He says that he conceived of the idea of unlimited supplies of labor while on mission in Bangkok, Thailand in 1952. This third lecture in the series, by Professor Charles Kindleberger, examines the broad applicability of the Lewis model.

Barbara A. P. Jones 1987 NEA President

The United States had a trade deficit of $170 billion in 1987 and, even though the value of the dollar has been declining, the deficit has shown no consistent pattern of improvement. The magnitude and persistence of the trade imbalance has led to a great deal of discussion of its impact on the U.S. economy and of policies that might be used to correct the imbalance. One major consideration that is often overlooked is the distributional and equity effect of the trade situation on the poor. While some advocates embrace protectionist policies as a means of “saving” jobs for low-income Americans, others argue that these measures raise the cost of goods used by the poor with no guarantee that jobs are actually saved. The following article reviews the available evidence on the position of low-income Americans under a policy of protectionism.

This article investigates the economic determinants of variations in nonwhite population growth rates attributable to migration in northern metropolitan areas during the 1960s. A simultaneous equations model is developed in which a nonwhite employment growth indicator is specified as a function of variables theoretically independent of concurrent nonwhite migration. Unlike prior studies of nonwhite migration, the migration equation does not employ a migrant stock indicator. The chain migration effect is linked directly to nonwhite employment growth. Variations in nonwhite net migration rates are found to be directly and significantly associated with nonwhite employment levels and nonwhite employment growth and negatively associated with income levels. Nonwhite employment growth is found positively and significantly associated with the growth of employment opportunities in low-ranked occupations, the growth of white employment in high-ranked occupations and prior nonwhite migration.

Insurance redlining and the racially discriminatory consequences of the sale of property insurance have been documented in several cities throughout the United States. In this study teams of “testers”—comparably qualified insurance consumers who differed only in the racial composition of the neighborhood of the homes they sought to insure—contacted three Milwaukee area insurance companies regarding the possibility of purchasing insurance for their homes. Though no blatantly discriminatory behavior was exhibited, agents representing these companies expressed a clear preference to pursue business in white communities and placed additional barriers in the way of testers from nonwhite neighborhoods. These findings parallel changes in other institutional sectors of the housing industry where blatantly discriminatory behavior has generally given way to more subtle forms of bias. Policy recommendations are offered to reduce existing racial disparities in the availability of insurance and to open up housing markets in general for minorities.

Evidence from the data tape for the 1985 Directory of the American Economic Association indicates that blacks and women remain underrepresented compared to their numbers in the general population. Although we present some limited evidence of increased representation of these minorities, the finding of underrepresentation is robust when we look at other measures of career status such as rank achieved or status of institution of employment. A fuller understanding of the determinants of minority participation within the economics profession will require that the data presented here be combined with data from other sources on productivity, salaries, and labor market alternatives.

In a 1986 article in the Review, Julianne Malveaux discussed the use of a comparable worth strategy for improving the economic position of black women (and men). In this response, the authors point out that some occupational channeling occurs prior to labor market entry and also suggest economic factors that could lead to reduced economic opportunity for some women as a result of the implementation of a comparable worth policy.

Have the increasing numbers of women and immigrants in the U.S. labor force adversely affected the relative earnings of black men? A recent article in this journal argued that they have, based on empirical analysis of 1970 census data. The present study begins with a critique of both the theoretical assumptions and the empirical methods of this earlier article. A regression analysis of 1980 census data is then undertaken, which indicates that recent immigration has not had a negative impact on the relative wages of central-city black men. The findings also suggest that while higher rates of female labor force participation are statistically associated with lower black-white wage ratios, this effect is limited to teenagers.