The Effects of University Affirmative Action Policies on the Human Capital Development of Minority Children: Do Expectations Matter?

Ronald Caldwell
Additional contact information
Ronald Caldwell : Department of Economics, The University of Kansas

No 200812, WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS from University of Kansas, Department of Economics

Abstract: Research shows that minority children enter the labor market with lower levels of acquired skill than do white children. This paper attempts to analyze one possible cause: the impact of a perceived lack of future opportunities on the human capital development of minority children. I take advantage of changes in affirmative action laws in California and Texas as a natural experiment and employ both difference-in-difference-in-difference and fixed effects methodologies to test for changes in achievement test scores among minority children. The results show a significant negative impact among black children of all ages in the affected states.

Keywords: skill gaps; race; discrimination; affirmative action (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J15 J24 J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-lab
Date: Written

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2008Papers/200812.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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kan:wpaper:200812

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS from University of Kansas, Department of Economics
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Ronald Caldwell ().