Search

This essay examines the extent to which research on the economics of race and crime produced by Black economists or published in the flagship journal of the organization of Black economists, the Review of Black Political Economy (RBPE), is undervalued by mainstream economics. We use modern bibliometric methods to test for citation biases in the economics of crime literature. We also identify the contributions of three streams of research overlooked in the mainstream literature: identity, police use of force, and mass incarceration. We find evidence that Blacks publishing on race and crime in top economics journals are less likely to be cited than non-Blacks and that articles published in the RBPE are less likely to be cited than articles published in other journals. A review of some under-cited articles reveals that themes related to identity, police use of force, and mass incarceration hold valuable insights for policy makers and those seeking solutions to problems of persistent racial disparities in the criminal legal system. (JEL A11, A14, H75, J15, K42)

This paper estimates a reduced form racial identity equation for a sample of African American survey respondents. The change in a state's fraction of white votes for Obama in 2008 relative to Kerry in 2004 provides an empirical proxy for a change in white antagonism toward African Americans. Using Current Population Survey data from 2003 to 2013, this paper finds that there is a positive and statistically significant Obama-effect on African American self-identification as mixed-race rather than as black-alone.

This paper critically assesses the empirical evidence on the relationship between immigration and African American employment. Studies using various methodologies and data are reviewed: natural experiments, time series, and cross-sectional studies of local labor markets and intertemporal changes in the national labor market. We find that for African Americans as a whole, immigration may have little effect on mean wages and probability of employment. However, there is some evidence that immigration may have had an adverse impact on the labor market outcomes of African Americans belonging to low education-experience groups. However, even this modest conclusion must be qualified: the literature has many unresolved econometric issues that might easily undermine the received wisdom.

This paper empirically examines the relationship between the self-identity as Indigenous and earnings inequality in the Mexican labor market. Using Mexican Census data and a large set of wage covariates reveals the existence of an earnings penalty for self-identification as Indigenous. There is an additional and larger penalty for Indigenous persons who are fluent in an Indigenous language, regardless of Spanish language fluency. Further analyses using the Mexican Family Life Survey reveal that these earnings gaps persist after we also control for an individual’s cognitive ability. Ethno-linguistic inequality is particularly strong in smaller cities and among self-employed workers. JEL Classification: J10, J15, J31, J71, O15

This paper examines intertemporal changes in racial disparity among mature Americans during the post-Jim Crow era, that is, 1965–2006. For a large nationally representative sample of American households, we pay special attention to differences between the South and other national regions, as the majority of African Americans do now and always have resided in the South. Historically, periods of progress in African American wellbeing have been followed by periods of regress that are often initiated by some combination of social change, government policy, and macroeconomic instability. Accordingly, we construct an overlapping series of five synthetic intertemporal cohorts of new seniors (ages 50–64). Cohorts are separated by the troughs of recessions. Finally, we note that regardless of race, men and women experience dissimilar opportunities in the market and in society; hence, gender dissimilarity is incorporated into our analysis. We find 1) large reductions in Post-Jim Crow contemporary disparity; 2) we also find large continuing disparity among the most recent cohorts; and, 3) changes in Southern racial weekly wage inequality (especially among men) have been especially important for determining the national pattern.

At the height of the US civil rights movement in the mid-1960s foreign-born persons were less than one percent of the African American popu lation. Today, 12 percent of America's African Diaspora work force consists of immigrants, and three percent are Hispanic. Some black immi grants?for example, Haitians and Spanish speaking Caribbean immigrants?have lower earnings and lower productivity-linked charac teristics than native African Americans. Other

For 30 years, Africana Studies has developed as an interdisciplinary field. Although much attention has been paid within the field to the humanities and arts, much less has been paid to the social sciences, particularly economics. This analysis documents the presence of economists and economics course content among Africana Studies programs. The authors also discuss the presence of economists and economic content among leading general interest journals in Africana Studies and of economics content in several influential Africana Studies texts. Only 1.72% of the faculty members in leading Africana Studies departments are economists, and economics course content among Africana Studies programs is anemic. Also, there is little economics content in Africana journals, particularly peer-reviewed journals. Recommendations include incorporating accessible economics texts into course reading lists; encouraging African American students to take economics, calculus, and statistics; teaching statistics and economic theory in the context of course content; and adding economists to the editorial boards of Black Studies journals.

This paper investigates two questions. First, what is the relative importance of the components of childhood family environment—parental values versus parental class status—for young adult economic outcomes? Second, are interracial differences in labor market outcomes fully explained by differences in family environment? We find that both family values and family class status affect intergenerational mobility and inter-racial inequality. Consideration of racial differences in parental values and class status alters but does not eliminate the impact of race on the labor market outcomes of young adults.

This study uses evolutionary game theory to model the relationship between racial identity formation and inter-racial disparities in economic and non-economic outcomes. Starting with a fixed population of persons who are easily identified according to an exogenous criterion, for example, phenotype, we then allow individuals to pursue either a racialist or an individualist identity strategy in social interactions. The formation of identity norms imposes both positive and negative externalities on each person's identity actions. There are forces in the model that might push society toward racialism, individualism, or a mixed identity equilibrium, depending on matching assumptions, dynamic assumptions, parameter values, and initial conditions.

This paper examines the issue of racism in economic research. Black and non-black scholars do see the world differently. Black authors are 13% more likely to report a finding of racial discrimination against blacks. Additionally, among the profession as a whole, there is a continuous long-term trend against published studies finding racial discrimination in the economics of crime, credit, or labor markets. Further, papers published in The Review of Black Political Economy (RBPE)—a black controlled economics journal—receive nearly four fewer citations than papers published in the average economics journals, while papers published in the top-tier journals receive a premium of more than eight citations relative to the average economics journal. Finally, black authors were slightly less likely to publish in top-tier journals.

This article examines heterogeneity and income inequality among Hispanic Americans. Two processes that influence Hispanic heterogeneity include acculturation and labor market discrimination because of skin shade/phenotype. I focus on Hispanics because of their variation in phenotype, color, nativity, and language usage and also because of their recent large-scale integration into a society that historically has been characterized by bipolar racial categories that are putatively based on phenotype. This process provides a natural experiment for appraising the relative importance of acculturation, discrimination, and income inequality. I use data from two periods, 1979 and 1989, to determine the stability of identity formation among Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics. I find strong incentives favoring acculturation among Mexican- and Cuban-Americans. Americans of Mexican and Cuban descent but less so Puerto Ricans are able to increase annual income and hourly wages by acculturating into a non-Hispanic white racial identity. However, neither the abandonment of Spanish nor the abandonment of a specifically Hispanic racial self-identity is sufficient to overcome the penalties associated with having a dark complexion and non-European phenotype.

This paper contrasts competing theories and evidence on the nature and significance of African American racial identity. In particular, we seek to examine whether race is best understood as a set of values and behaviors or whether race is best understood as a social norm.

The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed that collection of myths to which white Americans cling. … The tendency has really been, insofar as this was possible, to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.

Standard econometric analysis incorporates racial classification as an exogenous binary variable. However, econometric specification of racial identity by a simple binary variable masks differences in the meaning and use of racial/ ethnic identity across social groups. Consider an analysis of earnings differences between nonHispanic whites and Hispanics. A white/brown dichotomous variable in the earnings equation is clearly inappropriate since a large fraction of Hispanics either self-identify as white (regardless of how they are seen by others) or have physical features that are indistinguishable from non-Hispanic whites (though they may self

Racial inequality remains a substantial problem in American society. Competing explanations of African American - white inequality often overlap but they are often also quite contentious. Recent empirical studies on the role of race and labor have tended to absolve the market process of contributing to persistent racial discrimination. The most sophisticated studies that claim to show no discrimination within the labor market rely on a single test score variable (the AFQT) within one dataset. However, the AFQT over-estimates African American - white pre-labor market skill differences, its predictions have not been replicated by studies that employ different measures of cognitive skills, and it yields inconsistent and counter-intuitive results when decomposed into its component parts. After reviewing some of the most recent literature, this study concludes that the notion that competition will eliminate discrimination within the labor market is little more than conservative political ideology masquerading ...

Persistent interracial wage differentials present a challenge for neoclassical models of discrimination, which claim that long-rung competition is not consistent with persistent discrimination. This study provides an empirical examination of the missing variable and job competition models of interracial wage inequality. The results argue strongly against the missing variables approach and strongly in favor of the job competition model. Specifically, this study finds that about one-half of the male African American-white and Latino-white interracial wage differentials are due to market discrimination against African Americans and Latinos. In addition, the positive and significant coefficients on the race-gender employment-density variables strongly affirm the job competition model's contention that access to white (especially) male-dominated jobs increases an individual's wage rate--regardless of race. Racial job segregation, then, is an important explanatory variable for racial wage discrimination. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.

(1998). Race, Cognitive Ability, and Wage Inequality. Challenge: Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 63-84.

This article examines the interrelationships among race, culture, skill, and the distribution of wages. I utilize a three-equation system to explore this process: skill is a multidimensional productive attribute measured by years of education and work effort; educational attainment is a function of class background and individual effort; and individual wage rates are a function of skill and class background. By further assuming that effort is differentially distributed across individuals and social groups, I am able to estimate reduced form equations for educational and earnings attainment, where both equations are functions of the class backgrounds and race of individuals. The collective results of this article challenge the conventional wisdom among economists that African American and Latino job skills are of a lower quality than white job skills. To the extent that effort is an important element of worker skill, our results suggest that neither African American nor Latino labor is of lower quality than white labor. The results regarding differences between African Americans and whites in educational attainment, i.e., African Americans are able to translate a given level of resources into higher levels of educational attainment, reaffirm previous findings in the literature. The results on Latino versus white educational attainment are novel. Additionally, unlike previous research, this article connects racial differences in the skill acquisition process to the economics of discrimination.

It is well known that there are large income differentials across racial and ethnic households. For 1989, the median figures are as follows: Whites, $30,406; African Americans, $18,083; Asians or Pacific Islanders, $36,102; and Hispanics, $21,921 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990, pp. 1-24). Household differentials in income remain when the mean income per household member is examined: Whites, $14,720; African Americans, $8,344; Asians or Pacific Islanders, $13,964; and Hispanics, $8,062 (pp. 1-24). Wealth and poverty status are also divergent across racial and ethnic groups. As of 1989, the family poverty rates for Whites, African Americans, Asian or Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics are 7.8%, 27.8%, 11.9%, and 23.4%, respectively (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990, pp. 1-24). The figures for median household net worth are equally diverse. White households have the largest median net worth, $39,135, whereas African American and Hispanic households have comparable figures of $3,397 and $4,913, respectively (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1986, pp. 4-25). Are these differentials in income, poverty status, and wealth across racial and ethnic families a reflection of differential incomeearning characteristics? Market discrimination? The market functionality of cultural attributes across racial and ethnic groups? Indeed, is the interracial distribution of income-earning characteristics a function of market discrimination or cultural characteristics? The answer to the first part of this question is noncontroversial. There

This paper develops a competitive model of racial wage and employment discrimination. Discrimination is a persistent outcome of the interaction of two phenomena. The first is the adverse effect of racial conflict on the organisational strength of workers which, in turn, affects the formation of wage differentials. This is a class struggle effect. The second is the negative correlation between the interracial employment ratio and the wage differential, within occupations arid across all capitals. This is a racial exclusion effect. The interaction of the class struggle and racial exclusion effects implies persistent discrimination.

This article begins with an examination of the evidence in support of traditional explanations of poverty: labor market and macroeconomic conditions; family structure; and government policy and programs. It argues that these explanations provide a useful but ultimately incomplete understanding of poverty. It then considers alternative explanations that are under-researched in the United States: social capital and social exclusion. Social capital is defined as “the social and economic spaces in which individuals reside and which provides them with certain group interactions, networks, and resources that help to inform their strategic actions that provide access to public and private resources.” Social exclusion occurs when individuals do not have access to standards of well-being, such as health care, education, and affordable housing.

Foreword by John Weeks Introduction: The Search for an Alternative 1. "The Fallacy of Competition: Markets and the Movement of Capital" 2. "The Hidden History of Competition and its Implications" 3. "Synthetic Competition, Global Oil, and the Cult of Monopoly" 4. "Catallactic Competition, Business Organization, and Market Order" 5. "Schumpeterian Competition" 6. "The Theory of Innovative Enterprise: Methodology, Ideology, and Institutions" 7. "Competition, Going Enterprise, and Economic Activity" 8. "Sraffa, the General Rate of Profit, and the Theory of the Firm: A Conjectural Approach" 9. "Explaining Long Term Exchange Rate Behavior in the United States and Japan" 10. "Components of Differential Profitability in a Classical/Marxian Theory of Competition: A Case Study of Turkish Manufacturing" 11. "Classical Competition and Regulating Capital: Theory and Empirical Evidence" 12. "Are Mega-Corps Competitive? Some Empirical Tests of Business Competition"

This study empirically investigates whether racial and ethnic differences in police searches of stopped drivers reflect efficient enforcement or biased policing. Null hypotheses consistent with efficient enforcement are derived from alternative assumptions regarding police objectives: 1) police seek to maximize public safety, and 2) police seek to maximize the hit rate. We use both an outcomes-based non-parametric analysis and a standard benchmarking parametric approach (regression analysis). Both approaches yield the same results: law enforcement officers display both personal and police cultural bias in their propensity to search African American and Latino drivers. African American and Latino status tends to lower the guilt signal required for police suspicion. Further, white officers police differently than their African American and Latino colleagues. White officers are 73 percent of the sworn police force, conduct 88 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 20 percent. Latino officers are 11 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 8 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 24 percent. African American officers are 15 percent of the sworn labor force, conduct 4 percent of the searches, and have a hit rate of 26 percent. The preferential treatment of white drivers by police is attenuated with increases in the fraction of racial and ethnic minority residents in the county where the stop occurred.

This study examines the relationship between officer characteristics and racially biased policing. In particular, we explore the relationship between the officer's race/ethnicity and the nature and extent of excessive enforcement actions by race. We derive an efficient enforcement action theorem which suggests that if public safety is the sole concern of police agencies, then racially and ethnically biased policing will not be a persistent element of police practice. Alternatively, our political economic model suggests that police apply more severe sanctions against other-group drivers. Our results show that the race and ethnicity of officers have a significant and substantive impact on the intensity of enforcement actions by the Florida Highway Patrol against stopped drivers.

There is substantial racial and gender disparity in the American economy. As we will demonstrate, discriminatory treatment within the labor market is a major cause of this inequality. Yet, there appear to have been particular periods in which racial minorities, and then women, experienced substantial reductions in economic disparity and discrimination. Some questions remain: Why did the movement toward racial equality stagnate after the mid-1970s? What factors are most responsible for the remaining gender inequality? What is the role of the competitive process in elimination or reproduction of discrimination in employment? How successful has the passage of federal antidiscrimination legislation in the 1960s been in producing an equal opportunity environment where job applicants are now evaluated on their qualifications? To give away the answer at the outset, discrimination by race has diminished somewhat, and discrimination by gender has diminished substantially; neither employment discrimination by race or by gender is close to ending. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent related legislation has purged American society of the most overt forms of discrimination, while discriminatory practices have continued in more covert and subtle forms. Furthermore, racial discrimination is masked and rationalized by widely-held presumptions of black inferiority.

Introduction. I. Self-Employment: Escape From Racism? 1. The Status of Self-Employed and Employee African Americans in the New York City Construction Industry T. Bates, D. Howell. 2. Black Employment Criminal Activity and Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of New Jersey S. Myers, Jr., W.E. Spriggs. II: Racial Wage Inequality and Discrimination. 3. Measuring Wage Discrimination During Periods of Growing Overall Wage Inequality W.M. Rodgers, III. III: Health. 4. Will Greater Competition Improve the Markets for Health Care Services and the Health Outcomes for Black Americans W. Leigh. 5. The Continuing Significance of Race in Meeting the Health Care Needs of Black Elderly S. White-Means. IV: Race Crime and the Neighborhood. 6. Race and Crime: What is the Connection K. Gyimah-Brempong. 7. Why Does Race Matter in Housing and Credit Markets? G. Dymski. Contributing Authors. Index.

This article is an examination of the similarities between Michael Reich's divide-and-conquer model of discrimination and the Becker-Arrow taste model of discrimination. It shows that Reich's model of discrimination is analytically identical to Arrow's employer discrimination model when employer utility is a function of total profits and the racial employment ratio. It also shows that the Becker-Arrow distinction between employer and employee discrimination is invalid. Finally, the author argues that neoclassical competition is the major defect of both models. After discussing the implications of these results the article points to new directions in the literature on the economics of discrimination.

During the 2000s Arab and Islamic American racial identity selection was subjected to an exogenous racializing event, viz., public and private reaction to the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. The Al Qaeda attacks clearly demarcate a period in which there was a structural increase in the intensity of US stigmatization of persons with Islamic religious affiliation and Arab ethnicity. This stigmatization created an exogenous reduction in the expected payoff to acculturation relative to non-acculturation. This paper uses self-identification as white as its measure of acculturation and the fraction of all hate crimes directed at Muslims as its measure of stigmatization after 9/11. Comparing 2002–2012 to 1996–2001, there is a statistically significant and substantively large decrease in the unconditional and conditional probabilities that Arab and Islamic Americans will self-identify as white. The data are combined cross sections of the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Jel codes: J11, J15, Z13