An Alternative Test of Racial Prejudice in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence

Shamena Anwar and Hanming Fang
Additional contact information
Shamena Anwar: Department of Economics, YaleUniversity, https://economics.yale.edu

No 1464, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: We exploit a simple but realistic model of trooper behavior to design empirical tests that address the following two questions. Are police monolithic in their search behavior? Is racial profiling in motor vehicle searches motivated by troopers' desire for effective policing (statistical discrimination) or by their racial prejudice (racism)? Our tests require data sets with race information about both the motorists and troopers. When applied to vehicle stop and search data from Florida, our tests can soundly reject the null hypothesis that troopers of different races are monolithic in their search behavior, but fail to reject the null hypothesis that none of the racial groups of troopers are racially prejudiced.

Keywords: Statistical Discrimination; Racial Prejudice; Racial Profiling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2004-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published in American Economic Review (March 2006), 96(1): 127-151

Downloads: (external link)
https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d14/d1464.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Journal Article: An Alternative Test of Racial Prejudice in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence (2006)
Working Paper: An Alternative Test of Racial Prejudice in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence (2005)
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:cwl:cwldpp:1464

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA
The price is None.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brittany Ladd (cowles@yale.edu).