Publications:

1) Williams, Jhacova. 2022. Historical lynchings and the contemporary voting behavior of blacks. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14(3), 224-53.

2) Williams, Jhacova. A. 2021. Confederate streets and black-white labor market differentials. In AEA Papers and Proceedings (Vol. 111, pp. 27-31).

3) Williams, Jhacova. A., Logan, Trevon D., & Hardy, Bradley L. 2021. The persistence of historical racial violence and political suppression: Implications for contemporary regional inequality. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 694(1), 92-107.

4) Carman, Katie, Chandra, Anita, Miller, Carolyn, Nelson, Christopher, & Williams, Jhacova. 2021. Americans' View of the Impact of COVID-19: Perspectives on Racial Impacts and Equity. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 46(5), 889-924.

Selected Working Paper:

Political Foundations of Racial Violence in the Post-Reconstruction South (with Patrick Testa)

Abstract:

This paper shows how the geography of racial violence across the post-Reconstruction U.S. South was tied to the local political performance of the Democratic Party. Analyzing close elections using a regression discontinuity design, we find that Southern counties where Democrats lost in presidential elections between 1880 and 1900 were nearly twice as likely to experience Black lynchings over the subsequent four years. Indicating elite influence, Democratic losses simultaneously precipitated a rise in Black crime allegations in local Democrat-affiliated newspapers. An early substitute for later de jure voter suppression, such violence played a critical role in the Democratic Party’s consolidation of the South, together with the political and economic disenfranchisement of Southern Black people in the early 20th century. To help interpret these findings, we develop a formal theory in which electoral losses signal local political weakness, rendering more salient the threat of minority opposition and inducing greater investment in violence by local elites.

Selected Working Project:

The Highway to Displacement: Interstate 10 and Black Communities in New Orleans

Abstract:
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 authorized the construction of 41,000 miles of the U.S. interstate highway system, making it the largest public works program in U.S. history. While this system successfully connected states and communities across the nation, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that nearly 500,000 households were displaced due to these construction projects. This project examines the economic consequences of a specific highway funded under this Act in one city, namely Interstate 10 in New Orleans. Using newly constructed data from historical maps and exploiting census-tract level variation in highway placement, we find that Interstate 10 resulted in differential housing displacement in Black communities compared to White communities. Specifically, Black communities saw a significant decline in housing units compared to White communities when both experienced highway construction. These results remain for decades following construction, suggesting that highway construction left a legacy of racial inequality in New Orleans.