[lbo-talk] employers aren't racist, they just care if your parents were poor

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon Oct 27 06:32:39 PST 2003


Doug:
>
> [This is a beaut. Further evidence of Jim O'Connor's dictum that
> economics is a criminal enterprise.]
>
> Business Week - November 3, 2003
>
> ECONOMIC VIEWPOINT
> By Robert J. Barro

I thing it is biased journalism, not economics. The Bernard and Mullainathan paper referred to in the article makes a specific claim of racial discrimination (see the last sentence of the enclosed abstract). http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873 ---- Abstract -----

We perform a field experiment to measure racial discrimination in the labor market. We respond with fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perception of race, each resume is assigned either a very African American sounding name or a very White sounding name. The results show significant discrimination against African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries. Federal contractors and employers who list Equal Opportunity Employer' in their ad discriminate as much as other employers. We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring something other than race, such as social class, from the names. These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a prominent feature of the labor market.

Barro reports that paper is if its conclusions were to the contrary.

It is journalism, not economics that is a truly criminal enterprise.

Wojtek



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