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"Hate at First Sight": Evidence of Consumer Discrimination Against African-Americans in the US

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  • Morgane Laouénan

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

Abstract

The paper runs the customer discrimination test provided by Combes et al. (2013) on US data. This test is based on a two-sector matching model with racial sector-specific preferences or abilities, employer discrimination and customer discrimination. The strategy makes it possible to disentangle customer from employer discrimination. My results prove the existence of discrimination against African-Americans at job entry from both employers and consumers in the US. It also reports that racial prejudice has a quantitative effect on the relative employment and contact probabilities of blacks. A decrease in the intensity of discrimination by one standard deviation raises the raw employment rate of blacks by 15 percent and increases the proportion of blacks in jobs in contact with customers by 20 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Morgane Laouénan, 2013. ""Hate at First Sight": Evidence of Consumer Discrimination Against African-Americans in the US," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2013032, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvir:2013032
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    1. Ian Burn, 2020. "The Relationship between Prejudice and Wage Penalties for Gay Men in the United States," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 73(3), pages 650-675, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Customer Discrimination; Racial Prejudice; Search Model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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