Statistical Discrimination or Prejudice? A Large Sample Field Experiment

Michael Ewens, Bryan Tomlin and Liang Wang

No 23-12, Monash Economics Working Papers from Monash University, Department of Economics

Abstract: A model of racial discrimination provides testable implications for two features of statistical discriminators: differential treatment of signals by race and heterogeneous experience that shapes perception. We construct an experiment in the U.S. rental apartment market that distinguishes statistical discrimination from taste-based discrimination. Responses from over 14,000 rental inquiries with varying applicant quality show that landlords treat identical information from applicants with African-American and white sounding names differently. This differential treatment varies by neighborhood racial composition and signal type in a way consistent with statistical discrimination and in contrast to patterns predicted by a model of taste-based discrimination.

JEL-codes: J15 J70 J71 R3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Journal Article: Statistical Discrimination or Prejudice? A Large Sample Field Experiment (2014)
Working Paper: Statistical Discrimination or Prejudice? A Large Sample Field Experiment
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