IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/quedwp/274676.html

Affirmative Action and Human Capital Investment: Theory and Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Cotton, Christopher
  • Hickman, Brent R.
  • Price, Joseph P.

Abstract

High-School human capital investment occurs within a competitive environment, and Affirmative Action (AA) shapes the relative competition between blacks and whites for admission to high-quality colleges. We present a theory of AA in university admissions and conduct a field experiment to mimic aspects of competition for college. We offer relative incentives to study math and track students’ time on a mathematics website. AA increases average human capital investment and exam performance for its target beneficiaries by mitigating “discouragement effects” We also find evidence that AA can promote greater equality of market outcomes and narrow achievement gaps at the same time.

Suggested Citation

  • Cotton, Christopher & Hickman, Brent R. & Price, Joseph P., 2016. "Affirmative Action and Human Capital Investment: Theory and Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment," Queen's Economics Department Working Papers 274676, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:quedwp:274676
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.274676
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/274676/files/qed_wp_1350.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.274676?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edwin Leuven & Hessel Oosterbeek & Bas van der Klaauw, 2010. "The Effect of Financial Rewards on Students' Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(6), pages 1243-1265, December.
    2. Anat Bracha & Alma Cohen & Lynn Conell-Price, 2013. "Affirmative action and stereotype threat," Working Papers 13-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    3. Roland G. Fryer, 2011. "Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1755-1798.
    4. Andrew Schotter & Keith Weigelt, 1992. "Asymmetric Tournaments, Equal Opportunity Laws, and Affirmative Action: Some Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 511-539.
    5. Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn, 1993. "Antidiscrimination Enforcement and the Problem of Patronization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 92-98, May.
    6. Jessica S. Howell, 2010. "Assessing the Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action in Higher Education," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 113-166, January.
    7. Eric P. Bettinger, 2012. "Paying to Learn: The Effect of Financial Incentives on Elementary School Test Scores," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 686-698, August.
    8. Peter Arcidiacono, 2005. "Affirmative Action in Higher Education: How Do Admission and Financial Aid Rules Affect Future Earnings?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(5), pages 1477-1524, September.
    9. Calsamiglia, Caterina & Franke, Jörg & Rey-Biel, Pedro, 2013. "The incentive effects of affirmative action in a real-effort tournament," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 15-31.
    10. Long, Mark C., 2008. "College quality and early adult outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 588-602, October.
    11. Cotton, Christopher & McIntyre, Frank & Price, Joseph, 2013. "Gender differences in repeated competition: Evidence from school math contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 52-66.
    12. Aaron Bodoh-Creed & Brent Hickman, 2016. "College Assignment as a Large Contest," Working Papers 2016-27, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    13. Stacy Berg Dale & Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1491-1527.
    14. Dan A. Black & Jeffrey A. Smith, 2006. "Estimating the Returns to College Quality with Multiple Proxies for Quality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 701-728, July.
    15. Jesse Rothstein & Albert H. Yoon, 2007. "Affirmative Action in Law School Admissions: What Do Racial Preferences Do?," Working Papers 20, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Education Research Section..
    16. Loury, Linda Datcher & Garman, David, 1995. "College Selectivity and Earnings," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 289-308, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Guilherme Strifezzi Leal & Ã lvaro Choi, 2021. "Racial quotas in higher education and pre-college academic performance: Evidence from Brazil," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2021/411, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher S. Cotton & Brent R. Hickman & Joseph P. Price, 2022. "Affirmative Action and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 157-185.
    2. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim, 2016. "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Trade-Off," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 3-51, March.
    3. Hinrichs, Peter, 2014. "Affirmative action bans and college graduation rates," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 43-52.
    4. Francis-Tan, Andrew & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2018. "Black Movement: Using discontinuities in admissions to study the effects of college quality and affirmative action," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 97-116.
    5. Peter Hinrichs, 2020. "Affirmative Action and Racial Segregation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(2), pages 239-267.
    6. Lang, Kevin & Siniver, Erez, 2011. "Why is an elite undergraduate education valuable? Evidence from Israel," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 767-777.
    7. Cory Koedel, 2009. "Postsecondary Education Structure," Working Papers 0906, Department of Economics, University of Missouri, revised 04 Oct 2010.
    8. Guilherme Strifezzi Leal & Ã lvaro Choi, 2021. "Racial quotas in higher education and pre-college academic performance: Evidence from Brazil," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2021/411, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    9. Motte Henrique & Oliveira Rodrigo, 2020. "The effect of class assignment on academic performance and the labour market: Evidence from a public federal university in Brazil," WIDER Working Paper Series wp2020-8, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Long, Mark C., 2010. "Changes in the returns to education and college quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 338-347, June.
    11. Juliana Silva-Goncalves & Uwe Dulleck & Anita Lee Hong & Markus Schaffner & Stephen Whyte, 2016. "Affirmative action and effort choice: An experimental investigation," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-54, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Christopher Cotton & Brent R. Hickman & Joseph P. Price, 2020. "Affirmative Action, Shifting Competition, and Human Capital Accumulation: A Comparative Static Analysis of Investment Contests," Working Paper 1433, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    13. Eleanor Wiske Dillon & Jeffrey Andrew Smith, 2020. "The Consequences of Academic Match between Students and Colleges," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(3), pages 767-808.
    14. Sarah R. Cohodes & Joshua S. Goodman, 2014. "Merit Aid, College Quality, and College Completion: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 251-285, October.
    15. Cohodes, Sarah & Goodman, Joshua, 2012. "First Degree Earns: The Impact of College Quality on College Completion Rates," Working Paper Series rwp12-033, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Peter Arcidiacono & Cory Koedel, 2014. "Race and College Success: Evidence from Missouri," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 20-57, July.
    17. Yagan, Danny, 2016. "Supply vs. demand under an affirmative action ban: Estimates from UC law schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 38-50.
    18. Jack Mountjoy & Brent Hickman, 2020. "The Returns to College(s): Estimating Value-Added and Match Effects in Higher Education," Working Papers 2020-08, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    19. Broecke, Stijn, 2012. "University selectivity and earnings: Evidence from UK data on applications and admissions to university," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 96-107.
    20. Weinstein, Russell, 2018. "Employer screening costs, recruiting strategies, and labor market outcomes: An equilibrium analysis of on-campus recruiting," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 282-299.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:quedwp:274676. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/qedquca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.