未命名 7
1. In Podcast 8, I discussed several studies inspired by the 2004 audit study we read for class that week by
Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, called “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha
and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination.”
For 3 extra credit points, write 1-2 paragraphs comparing Bertrand and Mullainathan's research results with
the findings of a 2017 study I didn't discuss: research conducted by UCLA sociology professor S. Michael
Gaddis, titled “How Black Are Lakisha and Jamal? Racial Perceptions from Names Used in Co
espondence
Audit Studies.” Sociological Science 4: XXXXXXXXXX.
2.Kenrick Grandison presents important ideas about place, and how to study it in his article
"Negotiated Space: The Black College Campus as a Cultural Record of Postbellum America." To
explore these questions in a different way, for extra credit, you can listen to a Podcast about the
Great Dismal Swamp made by the team at 99 Percent Invisible:https:
99percentinvisible.org
episode/great-dismal-swamp/
(Links to an external site.)
Here’s how the optional extra credit works:This 2017 episode takes about 25 minutes. During that
time, the podcasters (Roman Mars and Sharif Youssef) mention numerous research sources they
used. For extra credit, while you listen to the podcast, pay attention to those sources, and write
down some notes about things that stand out to you. Also write down at least one thing the podcast
makes you wonder about.
3.our unit on names and economics. To explore another facet of her research, for extra credit, you can listen
to a podcast made by the team at Planet Money:
https:
www.npr.org/transcripts/ XXXXXXXXXX
(Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.)
Here’s how the optional extra credit works:
This 2020 episode takes about 25 minutes. During that time, Lisa Cook describes her research, and some of
the problems and complexities she had to overcome to get reliable data on the impact of racial violence and
discrimination on African American patents. For extra credit, while you listen to the podcast, pay attention to
that discussion, and write down some notes about things that stand out to you. Also write down at least one
thing the podcast makes you wonder about.
https:
courses.berkeley.edu/courses/1507262/files/ XXXXXXXXXX?wrap=1
https:
courses.berkeley.edu/courses/1507262/files/ XXXXXXXXXX?wrap=1
https:
courses.berkeley.edu/courses/1507262/files/ XXXXXXXXXX?wrap=1
https:
courses.berkeley.edu/courses/1507262/files/ XXXXXXXXXX?wrap=1
https:
courses.berkeley.edu/courses/1507262/files/ XXXXXXXXXX?wrap=1
https:
courses.berkeley.edu/courses/1507262/files/ XXXXXXXXXX?wrap=1
https:
99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-dismal-swamp
https:
99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-dismal-swamp
https:
99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-dismal-swamp
https:
www.npr.org/transcripts/ XXXXXXXXXX
https:
www.npr.org/transcripts/ XXXXXXXXXX
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination
American Economic Association
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on
Labor Market Discrimination
Author(s): Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan
Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 94, No. 4 (Sep., 2004), pp XXXXXXXXXX
Published by: American Economic Association
Stable URL: http:
www.jstor.org/stable/3592802
Accessed: XXXXXXXXXX:25 UTC
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Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and
Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination
By MARIANNE BERTRAND AND SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN*
We study race in the labor market by sending fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads
in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perceived race, resumes are
randomly assigned African-American- or White-sounding names. White names
receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more respon-
sive to resume quality for White names than for African-American ones. The racial
gap is uniform across occupation, industry, and employer size. We also find little
evidence that employers are infe
ing social class from the names. Differential
treatment by race still appears to still be prominent in the U.S. labor market. (JEL
J71, J64).
Every measure of economic success reveals
significant racial inequality in the U.S. labo
market. Compared to Whites, African-Ameri-
cans are twice as likely to be unemployed and
earn nearly 25 percent less when they are em-
ployed (Council of Economic Advisers, 1998).
This inequality has sparked a debate as to
whether employers treat members of different
races differentially. When faced with observ-
ably similar African-American and White ap-
plicants, do they favor the White one? Some
argue yes, citing either employer prejudice o
employer perception that race signals lower pro-
ductivity. Others argue that differential treat-
ment by race is a relic of the past, eliminated by
some combination of employer enlightenment,
affirmative action programs and the profit-
maximization motive. In fact, many in this latte
camp even feel that stringent enforcement of
affirmative action programs has produced an
environment of reverse discrimination. They
would argue that faced with identical candi-
* Bertrand: Graduate School of Business, University of
Chicago, 1101 E. 58th Street, RO 229D, Chicago, IL 60637,
NBER, and CEPR (e-mail: marianne.bertrand@gsb.
uchicago.edu); Mullainathan: Department of Economics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 50 Memorial Drive,
E52-380a, Cam
idge, MA 02142, and NBER (e-mail:
XXXXXXXXXX). David A
ams, Victoria Bede, Simone
Berkowitz, Hong Chung, Almudena Fernandez, Mary Anne
Guediguian, Christine Jaw, Richa Maheswari, Beverley
Martis, Alison Tisza, Grant Whitehorn, and Christine Yee
provided excellent research assistance. We are also grateful
to numerous colleagues and seminar participants for very
helpful comments.
dates, employers might favor the African-
American one.' Data limitations make it
difficult to empirically test these views. Since
researchers possess far less data than employers
do, White and African-American workers that
appear similar to researchers may look very
different to employers. So any racial difference
in labor market outcomes could just as easily be
attributed to differences that are observable to
employers but unobservable to researchers.
To circumvent this difficulty, we conduct a
field experiment that builds on the co
espon-
dence testing methodology that has been pri-
marily used in the past to stud' minority
outcomes in the United Kingdom. We send
resumes in response to help-wanted ads in Chi-
cago and Boston newspapers and measure call-
back for interview for each sent resume. We
This camp often explains the poor performance of
African-Americans in terms of supply factors. If African-
Americans lack many basic skills entering the labor market,
then they will perform worse, even with parity or favoritism
in hiring.
2 See Roger Jowell and Patricia Prescott-Clarke (1970),
Jim Hu
uck and Simon Carter (1980), Colin Brown and
Pat Gay (1985), and Peter A. Riach and Judith Rich (1991).
One caveat is that some of these studies fail to fully match
skills between minority and nonminority resumes. For ex-
ample some impose differential education background by
racial origin. Doris Weichselbaumer (2003, 2004) studies
the impact of sex-stereotypes and sexual orientation. Rich-
ard E. Nisbett and Dov Cohen XXXXXXXXXXperform a related field
experiment to study how employers' response to a criminal
past varies between the North and the South in the United
States.
991
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THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
experimentally manipulate perception of race
via the name of the fictitious job applicant. We
randomly assign very White-sounding names
(such as Emily Walsh or Greg Baker) to half the
resumes and very African-American-sounding
names (such as Lakisha Washington or Jamal
Jones) to the other half. Because we are also
interested in how credentials affect the racial
gap in callback, we experimentally vary the
quality of the resumes used in response to a
given ad. Higher-quality applicants have on av-
erage a little more labor market experience and
fewer holes in their employment history; they
are also more likely to have an e-mail address,
have completed some certification degree, pos-
sess foreign language skills, or have been
awarded some honors.3 In practice, we typically
send four resumes in response to each ad: two
higher-quality and two lower-quality ones.
We randomly assign to one of the higher- and
one of the lower-quality resumes an African-
American-sounding name. In total, we respond
to over 1,300 employment ads in the sales,
administrative support, clerical, and custome
services job categories and send nearly 5,000
resumes. The ads we respond to cover a large
spectrum of job quality, from cashier work at
retail establishments and clerical work in a mail
room, to office and sales management positions.
We find large racial differences in callback
rates.4 Applicants with White names need to
send about 10 resumes to get one callback
whereas applicants with African-American
names need to send about 15 resumes. This
50-percent gap in callback is statistically signif-
icant. A White name yields as many more call-
backs as an additional eight years of experience
on a resume. Since applicants' names are ran-
domly assigned, this gap can only be attributed
to the name manipulation.
Race also affects the reward to having a bet-
ter resume. Whites with higher-quality resumes
receive nearly 30-percent more callbacks than
3 In creating the higher-quality resumes, we deliberately
make small changes in credentials so as to minimize the risk
of overqualification.
4 For ease of exposition, we refer to the effects uncov-
ered in this experiment as racial differences. Technically,
however, these effects are about the racial soundingness of
names. We
iefly discuss below the potential confounds
between name and race. A more extensive discussion is
offered in Section IV, subsection B.
Whites with lower-quality resumes. On the
other hand, having a higher-quality resume has
a smaller effect for African-Americans. In othe
words,