PE/PI Workshop: Mateo Villamizar Chaparro (Duke)

Mateo Villamizar Chaparro will present his paper, "The long-term effects of Whitening Policies in Brazil."

Abstract:
Historically, countries have used migration as a tool to populate empty regions or to supply labor to nascent economies. But what are the long-term effects of these policies? Empirically, I focus on the case of Brazil during the age of Mass Migration (1880-1930) to understand how diverse local migration policies explain the contemporary geography of support for redistribution and affirmative action. During that earlier age, Brazil offered land and labor to attract European migrants to work on the growing coffee sector in the country's South. Combining an original survey with archival and administrative data, I contend that places that gave land to migrants are less supportive of affirmative action policies, are more anti-distribution, and are more anti-migration today. I argue that this effect is a result of the preservation and strengthening of racial and social hierarchies in Brazilian society that have been transmitted through generations.