A Review Essay of The Economics of Structural Racism by Patrick Mason

Stephan Lefebvre

Journal of Economic Literature, 2025, vol. 63, issue 3, 1011-37

Abstract: This essay provides a streamlined presentation of stratification economics (SE) in three pillars and comments on Patrick L. Mason's (2023) book The Economics of Structural Racism: Stratification Economics and US Labor Markets. SE, a field that seeks to understand racism and other social inequalities between ascriptive groups, is characterized by rational, self-interested models of group conflict, where social groups, not individuals, are the fundamental unit of analysis, and where intergenerational transmission of advantage or disadvantage cannot be overlooked. Mason demonstrates how, compared to the dominant alternatives in economics, SE better explains changes in racial inequality over time.

JEL-codes: D31 D63 D74 D91 J15 J71 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1257/jel.20241770

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