In the 1960s Blacks and Whites chose relatively similar first names for their children. Over a short period of time in the early 1970s, that pattern changed dramatically with most Blacks (particularly those living in racially isolated neighborhoods) adopting increasingly distinctive names, but a subset of Blacks actually moving toward more assimilating names. The patterns in the data appear most consistent with a model in which the rise of the Black Power movement influenced how Blacks perceived their identities. Among Blacks born in the last two decades, names provide a strong signal of socioeconomic status, which was not previously the case. We find, however, no negative relationship between having a distinctively Black name and later life outcomes after controlling for a child's circumstances at birth.

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This paper formalizes a widely discussed peer effect entitled "acting white". "Acting White" is modeled as a two audience signaling quandary: signals that induce high wages can be signals that induce peer group rejection. Without peer effects, equilibria involve all ability types choosing different levels of education. "Acting White" alters the equilibrium dramatically: the (possibly empty) set of lowest ability individuals and the set of highest ability individuals continue to reveal their type through investments in education; ability types in the middle interval pool on a common education level. Only those in the lower intervals are accepted by the group. The model's predictions fit many stylized facts in the anthropology and sociology literatures regarding social interactions among minority group members.

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Acting white was once a label used by scholars, writing in obscure journals, to characterize academically inclined, but allegedly snobbish, minority students who were shunned by their peers. Now that it has entered the national consciousness, perhaps even its conscience, the term has become a slippery, contentious phrase that is used to refer to a variety of unsavory social practices and attitudes and whose meaning is open to many interpretations, especially as to who is the perpetrator, who the victim.

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Fifty years after the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, racial disparities in achievement are a robust empirical reality...

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We develop an index of segregation based on two premises: (1) a measure of segregation should disaggregate to the level of individuals, and (2) an individual is more segregated the more segregated are the agents with whom she interacts. We present an index which satisfies (1) and (2), and that is based on agents' social interactions: the extent to which Blacks interact with Blacks, Whites with Whites, etc. We use the index to measure school and residential segregation. Using detailed data on friendship networks, we calculate levels of within-school racial segregation in a sample of US schools. We also calculate residential segregation across major US cities, using block-level data from the 2000 US Census.

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Matlab programs to calculate the Spectral index and Indices for metropolitan areas are available here. The relevant files follow: callspec.m, blockspectral.m, neighbors.m

This paper develops a model of social interactions and endogenous poverty traps. The key idea is captured in a framework in which the likelihood of future social interactions with members of one's group is partly determined by group-specific investments made by individuals. I prove three main results. First, some individuals expected to make group-specific capital investments are worse off because their observed decision is used as a litmus test of group loyalty — creating a tradeoff between human capital and cooperation among the group. Second, there exist equilibria which exhibit bi-polar human capital investment behavior by individuals of similar ability. Third, as social mobility increases this bi-polarization increases. The models predictions are consistent with the bifurcation of distinctively black names in the mid-1960s, the erosion of black neighborhoods in the 1970s, accusations of 'acting white,' and the efficacy of certain programs designed to encourage human capital acquisition.

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There is a debate among social scientists regarding the existence of a peer externality commonly referred to as 'acting white.' Using a newly available data set, which allows one to construct an objective measure of a student's popularity, we demonstrate that there are large racial differences in the relationship between popularity and academic achievement; our (albeit narrow) definition of 'acting white.' The effect is intensified among high achievers and in schools with more interracial contact, but non-existent among students in predominantly black schools or private schools. The patterns in the data appear most consistent with a model of peer pressure in which investments in education are thought to be indicative of an individual's opportunity costs of peer group loyalty. Other models we consider, such as self-sabotage among black youth or the presence of an oppositional culture, all contradict the data in important ways. Eliminating racial differences in the relationship between popularity and achievement would have no effect on the average student, but may explain a significant portion of the gap among high achievers.

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