IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16448.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Detecting Discrimination in Audit and Correspondence Studies

Author

Listed:
  • David Neumark

Abstract

Audit studies testing for discrimination have been criticized because applicants from different groups may not appear identical to employers. Correspondence studies address this criticism by using fictitious paper applicants whose qualifications can be made identical across groups. However, Heckman and Siegelman (1993) show that group differences in the variance of unobservable determinants of productivity can still generate spurious evidence of discrimination in either direction. This paper shows how to recover an unbiased estimate of discrimination when the correspondence study includes variation in applicant characteristics that affect hiring. The method is applied to actual data and assessed using Monte Carlo methods.

Suggested Citation

  • David Neumark, 2010. "Detecting Discrimination in Audit and Correspondence Studies," NBER Working Papers 16448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16448
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16448.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hellerstein, Judith K & Neumark, David, 1999. "Sex, Wages, and Productivity: An Empirical Analysis of Israeli Firm-Level Data," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(1), pages 95-123, February.
    2. David Neumark & Roy J. Bank & Kyle D. Van Nort, 1996. "Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(3), pages 915-941.
    3. Cornelißen, Thomas, 2005. "Standard errors of marginal effects in the heteroskedastic probit model," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-320, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    4. John A. List & Uri Gneezy, 2004. "Are the Disabled Discriminated Against in Product Markets? Evidence from Sportscards to Sportscars," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 651, Econometric Society.
    5. P. A. Riach & J. Rich, 2002. "Field Experiments of Discrimination in the Market Place," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(483), pages 480-518, November.
    6. Peter A. Riach & Judith Rich, 2010. "An Experimental Investigation of Age Discrimination in the English Labor Market," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 99-100, pages 169-185.
    7. Judith K. Hellerstein & David Neumark, 2006. "Using Matched Employer–Employee Data to Study Labor Market Discrimination," Chapters, in: William M. Rodgers III (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Discrimination, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Joanna N. Lahey, 2008. "Age, Women, and Hiring: An Experimental Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(1).
    9. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    10. Lundberg, Shelly J & Startz, Richard, 1983. "Private Discrimination and Social Intervention in Competitive Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 340-347, June.
    11. Matzkin, Rosa L, 1992. "Nonparametric and Distribution-Free Estimation of the Binary Threshold Crossing and the Binary Choice Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 239-270, March.
    12. David L. Dickinson & Ronald L. Oaxaca, 2009. "Statistical Discrimination in Labor Markets: An Experimental Analysis," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 16-31, July.
    13. Richard Williams, 2009. "Using Heterogeneous Choice Models to Compare Logit and Probit Coefficients Across Groups," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 37(4), pages 531-559, May.
    14. Michael Fix & Raymond Struyk, 1993. "Clear and convincing evidence: Measurement of discrimination in america," Natural Field Experiments 00241, The Field Experiments Website.
    15. James J. Heckman, 1998. "Detecting Discrimination," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 101-116, Spring.
    16. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou, 1996. "Dealer Price Discrimination in New Car Purchases: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 622-654, June.
    17. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1982. "A model of employment outcomes illustrating the effect of the structure of information on the level and distribution of income," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 231-236.
    18. Lahey, Joanna N. & Beasley, Ryan A., 2009. "Computerizing audit studies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 508-514, June.
    19. Riach, Peter A. & Rich, Judy, 2007. "An Experimental Investigation of Age Discrimination in the Spanish Labour Market," IZA Discussion Papers 2654, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. William A. Darity & Patrick L. Mason, 1998. "Evidence on Discrimination in Employment: Codes of Color, Codes of Gender," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 63-90, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

    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:nbr:nberwo:16448. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.