Gavin Wright

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• 8-6-14
  

  Review of Gavin Wright’s “Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South”

  by Mike O’Connor

  That southern businesses had to be coerced by the federal government to open their doors to blacks — which proved to be an economic boon — suggests that government economic intervention can succeed, contrary to libertarian claims.

• SOURCE: Bloomberg Echoes
  6-26-13
  

  Gavin Wright: Voting Rights Act Brought Major Economic Benefits

  Gavin Wright is the William Robertson Coe professor of American economic history at Stanford University. He is the author of “Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South.”The Supreme Court’s rejection yesterday of a central element of the 1965 Voting Rights Act took aim at a measure that not only broke down barriers to political participation in the South but also made significant contributions to the economic wellbeing of black southerners and to the region as a whole.Some of the economic benefits were apparent almost immediately after enactment. Surveys reported more paved roads and streetlights in black residential areas, better access to city and county services, and increased black hiring in public-sector jobs, including police and fire departments.