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The Study of American Interracial Marriage Market under Social and Educational Reforms

Student: Galeev Anton

Supervisor: Fabian Slonimczyk

Faculty: International College of Economics and Finance

Educational Programme: Double degree programme in Economics of the NRU HSE and the University of London (Bachelor)

Final Grade: 9

Year of Graduation: 2017

The work studies the dynamics of the number of interracial marriages in the US across the XX century. The analysis is of interest due to the issue of segregation in the early years and the ban on the unions of couples of different ethnicities. The impact of two reforms on the marriage behaviour of the Americans is analysed in the paper. Firstly, in 1967 the Loving v. Virginia case declared any anti-miscegenation law unconstitutional, thus granting the citizens the right to marry regardless of spouses’ race. Secondly, in 1954 the Supreme Court abolished the segregation in public schools with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The reforms are analysed using three different tools: the marriage rate, the profit from marriage and an original regression model. The last one distinguishes two main determinants of interracial marriage, namely the availability of spouse and the cultural influence. All the tools are applied within standard difference-in-differences methodology. Loving v. Virginia showed no effect on the treatment group. Brown v. Board of Education also yielded negative effect on the most segregated states. Nevertheless, a positive impact on the states where the segregation was not widely enforced is observed. The paper concludes that neither of the decisions in question had an effect on the marriage behaviour in the most intolerant states.

Full text (added June 16, 2017)

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