Dania V. Francis of University of Massachusetts Boston reviews “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America” by Andrew W. Kahrl. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Discusses the history of racialized tax structures and the predatory practices that flourished within them in the United States, tracing these structures and practices from the Reconstruction through the first two decades of the twenty-first century.”

We explore the contributions of Black economists to research on major economic and social policy problems in the United States. We focus on applications in education, poverty and economic mobility, and public finance to extract common themes and patterns. The major themes that emerge include (i) Black economists’ examination of individual versus structural explanations for economic outcomes, (ii) the role played by race and discrimination, (iii) the endogenous determination of race, and (iv) the nature of objectivity and positionality in economic research. A unifying theme is a willingness of many Black economists to engage critically on economic policy issues, using frameworks both from within as well as outside of mainstream neoclassical economics.