Do People Value Racial Diversity? Evidence from Nielsen Ratings

Eric Aldrich (), Arcidiacono Peter S. and Jacob Vigdor
Additional contact information
Arcidiacono Peter S.: Duke University, psarcidi@econ.duke.edu

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2005, vol. 5, issue 1, 24

Abstract: Nielsen ratings for ABC's Monday Night Football are significantly higher when the game involves a black quarterback. In this paper, we consider competing explanations for this effect. First, quarterback race might proxy for other player or team attributes. Second, black viewership patterns might be sensitive to quarterback race. Third, viewers of all races might be exhibiting a taste for diversity. We use both ratings data and evidence on racial attitudes from the General Social Survey to test these hypotheses empirically. The evidence strongly supports the taste-for-diversity hypothesis, while suggesting some role for black own-race preferences as well.

Keywords: Customer Discrimination; Racial Diversity; Learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/1538-0653.1396 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

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:bpj:bejeap:v:topics.5:y:2005:i:1:n:4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/bejeap/html

DOI: 10.1515/1538-0653.1396

Access Statistics for this article

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy is currently edited by Hendrik Jürges and Sandra Ludwig

More articles in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().