An article on the American Melting Pot in Slate Magazine on October 31st discusses one of Professor Ross‘s recent working papers.  In this paper, Professors Ananat, Fu and Ross find that African-Americans benefit less in terms of earnings for working in locations with lots of economic activity.  Exposure to economic activity allows workers and firms to learn from each other and raises productivity and thus wages.  However, these spillovers appear to accrue along racial lines so that African-Americans do not benefit from a vibrant work location when most of the individuals working in that location are white.

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