Detecting Discrimination

James Heckman

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1998, vol. 12, issue 2, 101-116

Abstract: The evidence on discrimination produced from the audit method is examined. Audits survey the average firm and not the marginal firm which determines the level of market discrimination. Taken on its own terms, there is little evidence of labor market discrimination from audit methods. The validity of audit methods is critically dependent on unverified assumptions about equality across race/gender groups of the distributions of unobserved (by audit designers) productivity components acted on by firms and about the way labor markets work. Audits can find discrimination when none exists and can disguise it when it does.

JEL-codes: J15 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.12.2.101
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (477)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.12.2.101 (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:aea:jecper:v:12:y:1998:i:2:p:101-16

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

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

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