Black movement: Estimating the effects of affirmative action in college admissions on education and labor market outcomes

Andrew Francis-Tan and Maria Tannuri-Pianto

No 63/2016, Economics and Politics Working Paper Series from Economics and Politics Research Group (EPRG), University of Brasília

Abstract: The recent adoption of race-targeted policies makes Brazil an insightful place to study affirmative action. In this paper, we estimate the effects of racial quotas at the University of Brasilia, which reserved 20% of admissions slots for persons who self-identified as black. To do so, we link the admissions outcomes of high-performing applicants in 2004-2005 to their education and labor market outcomes in 2012. We adopt methods that make use of sharp discontinuities in the admissions process. In summary, the policy of racial quotas mostly improved outcomes for the targeted group. Relative to quota applicants below the cutoff, quota applicants above the cutoff enjoyed an increase in years of education, college completion, and labor earnings. Those gains were concentrated among men and applicants in more selective majors. For the large part, mismatch was not prevalent. However, there was evidence of mismatch among those quota students in less selective majors.

Keywords: affirmative action; racial quotas; mismatch; educational policy; college quality; minorities; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03-30
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gvn:eprgwp:632016

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23594271

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