Racial Isolation and Marginalization of Economic Research on Race and Crime

Patrick Mason, Samuel L. Myers and Margaret Simms

Journal of Economic Literature, 2022, vol. 60, issue 2, 494-526

Abstract: This essay examines the extent to which research on the economics of race and crime produced by Black economists or published in the flagship journal of the organization of Black economists, the Review of Black Political Economy (RBPE), is undervalued by mainstream economics. We use modern bibliometric methods to test for citation biases in the economics of crime literature. We also identify the contributions of three streams of research overlooked in the mainstream literature: identity, police use of force, and mass incarceration. We find evidence that Blacks publishing on race and crime in top economics journals are less likely to be cited than non-Blacks and that articles published in the RBPE are less likely to be cited than articles published in other journals. A review of some under-cited articles reveals that themes related to identity, police use of force, and mass incarceration hold valuable insights for policy makers and those seeking solutions to problems of persistent racial disparities in the criminal legal system.

JEL-codes: A11 A14 H75 J15 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jel.20211688 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E161361V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jel.20211688.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

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:aea:jeclit:v:60:y:2022:i:2:p:494-526

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/jel.20211688

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().