Abstract
N. S. Chiteji and Darrick Hamilton
Recent scholarship has struggled to explain the large gaps that exist between the wealth that is amassed by white families compared to black families. These gaps exist in the population at large, even when one restricts one's analysis to middle-class families exclusively. This paper examines the connection between poverty among kin and wealth accumulation among middle-class families. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, it finds evidence to support the hypothesis that part of the reason that black families have limited wealth is due to the fact that they are more likely to have poor relatives in their family tree.
N. S. Chiteji is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Skidmore College and a Research Affiliate of the Poverty Research and Training Program at the University of Michigan. Professor Chiteji conducts research in the areas of poverty and inequality, monetary economics, and economic development.
Darrick Hamilton is a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Yale University and an Assistant Professor at the Robert J. Milano School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University. His research interests include investigating ethnic and racial inequality in economic and health outcomes.
Jacqueline Agesa and Richard U. Agesa
Using data from Kenya, this paper identifies a rather curious empirical regularity: First, females form the smallest proportion of students enrolled in high school science courses. Secondly, females perform relatively worse in high school science courses. Third, for many female high school students public universities (unlike private universities) house the largest proportion of science courses offered at the university level. Therefore, given their relatively low enrollment compounded by their relatively poor performance in high school science courses, it is conceivable that females would form the smallest proportion of students seeking and gaining admission into public universities. This evidence may partially explain the gender disparity in public and private university enrollment in Kenya.
Jacqueline Agesa is Associate Professor, Division of Finance and Economics, Marshall University, One John Marshall Drive, Huntington, WV 25755; Tel: (304) 696–2607 (voice-mail); Fax: (304) 696–3662. E-mail:
Corresponding Author: Richard U. Agesa is Associate Professor, Division of Finance and Economics, Marshall University, One John Marshall Drive, Huntington, WV 25755; Tel: (304) 696–2606 (voice-mail); Fax: (304) 696–3662. E-mail:
Steven R. Holloway and Elvin K. Wyly
The practice of counting based on categorical notions of racial identity has provoked considerable debate in the social sciences and humanities. Efforts to enforce U.S. civil rights laws countering discrimination in mortgage lending have relied on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data that lending institutions are required to report to, and be subsequently distributed by, the U.S. Federal government. Community groups, federal regulators, and lending institutions lean heavily on these data to discover, monitor, and resist discriminatory practices. These data incorporate conventional categorical notions of racial identity and represent a potent example of strategic essentialism and the progressive deployment of racial data. This paper examines the ongoing dilemmas surrounding racial counting related to mortgage lending. In particular, we highlight recent trends that undermine the strategic construction of race-trends unrelated to academic debates over the nature of racial identity, yet resulting increasingly in the inability to identify a categorical racial identity for mortgage applicants. There is considerable irony represented by the increasing share of mortgage application records lacking racial information in a data set designed to counter racial discrimination. We consider this an appropriate moment to reflect critically on the theoretical and practical meaning(s) of racial identity.
Steven R. Holloway is in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia, 205 GG Building, Athens, GA 30602, USA, Phone: (706) 542^1109, Fax: (806) 542–2388. E-mail:
Elvin K. Wyly is in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, 1984 West Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2, CANADA, Phone: (604) 822–4653. E-mail:
Ryoichi Sakano
Although blacks seem to be catching up with whites in real earnings, there is still a substantial gap between the two groups and the income has been persistently less equally distributed among blacks than whites. These differences in means and distributions of incomes between two groups may persist in the long run if their income distributions are not converging. The U.S. income distribution data reveal that the income distributions of blacks and whites converged from 1947 through the 1960s, but since the late 1960s they began to diverge and blacks once again began to lag behind whites at every income level.
Ryoichi Sakano is an associate professor in the Department of Economics and Transportation/Logistics at the North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, North Carolina, 27411. E-mail:
Ancients to the Future
The late Damballah Dolphus Smith's (Jan. 14, 1943–Aug. 7, 1992) work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibits. Smith stated, “The images which have evolved from my life stream have always been spiritual/cultural. The infinity of ancestral spirits has been a central recurring theme. The line, color and textures which give shape to these images have sought to evoke the subtlety and poly-rhythmic intensity of African music which conducts our spirit throughout the Diaspora.”