Postdoctoral Researcher Associate Ellora Derenoncourt was awarded The Allan Nevins Prize in American Economic History by the Economic History Association.  "The Allan Nevins Prize in American Economic History is awarded annually by the Economic History Association on behalf of Columbia University Press for the best dissertation in U.S. or Canadian economic history completed during the previous year."  The 2019 prize was awarded at the Economic History Association's annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia in September 2019.

"My dissertation explored the long-run determinants of US racial inequality, " says Derenoncourt.  "The first couple chapters examined how northern cities' responses to black southerners during the Great Migration eroded upward mobility for subsequent generations of black children. The final chapter unearths a little known fact about racial earnings convergence during the Civil Rights Era. About one fifth of the convergence stemmed from a single reform to federal minimum wage policy in the late 1960s: extending minimum wage coverage to agriculture, services, and other sectors that were previously uncovered and where black workers were over-represented."