The Measurement of Racial Discrimination in Pay between Job Categories: Theory and Test

Örn B. Bodvarsson () and John G. Sessions ()
Additional contact information
Örn B. Bodvarsson: Retired
John G. Sessions: Newcastle University

No 3748, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The traditional model of taste discrimination in labor markets presumes perfect substitution, making it unsuitable for the measurement of discrimination across job assignments. We extend the model to explain cross-assignment discrimination and test it on data from Major League Baseball. A competitive firm with a Generalized Leontief production function fills each job assignment with whites and nonwhites in an environment of customer prejudice. According to the model, cross-assignment discrimination depends upon racial productivity differences, the productivity x prejudice interaction, technology, relative labor supply and racial integration. We find strong evidence of ceteris paribus racial salary differences between hitters and pitchers.

Keywords: integration; imperfect substitutability; wages; discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2008-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published as 'The Measurement of Pay Discrimination Between Job Assignments' in: Labour Economics, 2011, 18 (3), 297-309

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3748.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3748

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().