Racial bias in expert quality assessment: A study of newspaper movie reviews

Lona Fowdur, Vrinda Kadiyali and Jeffrey Prince

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2012, vol. 84, issue 1, 292-307

Abstract: Newspaper critics’ movie reviews are often used by potential movie viewers as signals of expert quality assessment. We investigate the existence and revenue impact of racial bias in these reviews. Using an expansive, novel dataset spanning 2003–2007, we find ratings for movies with a black lead actor and all white supporting cast are approximately 6 percent lower than for other racial compositions. These findings appear consistent with implicit discrimination, and result in an average revenue loss of up to 4 percent, or $2.57 million, per movie. Robustness checks show it is unlikely these results are driven by unobserved heterogeneity or random correlations.

Keywords: Movies; Expert ratings; Quality assessment; Racial bias; Implicit discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Racial Bias in Expert Quality Assessment: A Study of Newspaper Movie Reviews (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:84:y:2012:i:1:p:292-307

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.03.013

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