IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2023-15.html

The impact of affirmative action in India and the United States: A systematic literature review

Author

Listed:
  • Simone Schotte
  • Tharcisio Leone
  • Rachel M. Gisselquist

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic review of quantitative literature investigating the success of affirmative action policies in addressing socio-economic inequalities between ethnic groups in education and employment. We focus on two of the most influential national experiences: caste-based affirmative action in India and race-based affirmative action in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Simone Schotte & Tharcisio Leone & Rachel M. Gisselquist, 2023. "The impact of affirmative action in India and the United States: A systematic literature review," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-15, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2023-15-impact-affirmative-action-India-United-States.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ravallion, Martin, 2020. "Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 1: Inequality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Deshpande, Ashwini & Weisskopf, Thomas E., 2014. "Does Affirmative Action Reduce Productivity? A Case Study of the Indian Railways," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 169-180.
    3. David Neumark & Harry Holzer, 2000. "Assessing Affirmative Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 483-568, September.
    4. Saad Gulzar & Nicholas Haas & Benjamin Pasquale, 2023. "Does Political Affirmative Action Work, and for Whom? Theory and Evidence on India’s Scheduled Areas," Springer Books, in: Ashwini Deshpande (ed.), Handbook on Economics of Discrimination and Affirmative Action, chapter 32, pages 729-759, Springer.
    5. Simone Schotte & Rachel M. Gisselquist & Tharcisio Leone, 2023. "Does affirmative action address ethnic inequality?: A systematic review of the literature," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-14, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Ravallion, Martin, 2020. "Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Holzer, Harry & Neumark, David, 1999. "Are Affirmative Action Hires Less Qualified? Evidence from Employer-Employee Data on New Hires," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(3), pages 534-569, July.
    8. Dennis Epple & Richard Romano & Holger Sieg, 2008. "Diversity and Affirmative Action in Higher Education," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(4), pages 475-501, August.
    9. DL Sheth, 2004. "Caste, Ethnicity and Exclusion in South Asia: The Role of Affirmative Action Policies in Building Inclusive Societies," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2004-13, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    10. Aaron K. Chatterji & Kenneth Y. Chay & Robert W. Fairlie, 2014. "The Impact of City Contracting Set-Asides on Black Self-Employment and Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(3), pages 507-561.
    11. Justin McCrary, 2007. "The Effect of Court-Ordered Hiring Quotas on the Composition and Quality of Police," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 318-353, March.
    12. Gaurav Khanna, 2020. "Does Affirmative Action Incentivize Schooling? Evidence from India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 219-233, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Beaurain, Guillaume & Masclet, David, 2016. "Does affirmative action reduce gender discrimination and enhance efficiency? New experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 350-362.
    2. Najam, Rafiuddin, 2024. "Closing the gap: Effect of a gender quota on women’s access to education in Afghanistan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    3. Najam, Rafiuddin, 2024. "Closing the gap : Effect of a gender quota on women's access to education in Afghanistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10674, The World Bank.
    4. Rachel M. Gisselquist & Min Jung Kim & Simone Schotte & Chinmayi Srikanth, 2024. "Affirmative action around the world: insights from a new dataset (update)," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2024-48, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Cuesta, Lizeth & Ruiz, Yomara, 2021. "Efecto de la globalización sobre la desigualdad. Un estudio global para 104 países usando regresiones cuantílicas [Effect of globalization on inequality. A global study for 104 countries using quantile regressions]," MPRA Paper 111022, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Grant H. Lewis, 2017. "Effects of federal socioeconomic contracting preferences," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 763-783, December.
    7. Becker, Sascha O. & Mukand, Sharun & Yotzov, Ivan, 2022. "Persecution, pogroms and genocide: A conceptual framework and new evidence," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Subedi, Mukti Nath & Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa & Ulker, Aydogan, 2022. "Effects of Affirmative Action on Educational and Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Nepal's Reservation Policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 443-463.
    10. Amano-Patiño, N. & Aramburu, J. & Contractor, Z., 2022. "Is Affirmative Action in Employment Still Effective in the 21st Century?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2262, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Rikhil R. Bhavnani & Alexander Lee, 2021. "Does Affirmative Action Worsen Bureaucratic Performance? Evidence from the Indian Administrative Service," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 5-20, January.
    12. 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.
    13. Caitlin Knowles Myers, 2007. "A Cure for Discrimination? Affirmative Action and the Case of California's Proposition 209," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(3), pages 379-396, April.
    14. Sugata Bag & Suman Seth & Barnali Basak, 2023. "Heterogeneous effect of the Indian affirmative action: The role of caste certificates," Working papers 339, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    15. García Lara, Juan Manuel & García Osma, Beatriz & Mora, Araceli & Scapin, Mariano, 2017. "The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 651-668.
    16. Kok, Chun Chee & Lim, Gedeon & Shariat, Danial & Siddique, Abu & Tsuda, Shunsuke, 2025. "Interethnic Proximity and Political Development," IZA Discussion Papers 17776, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Das, Sabyasachi & Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Saroy, Rajas, 2023. "Does affirmative action in politics hinder performance? Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 370-405.
    18. Bolch, Kimberly B. & Ceriani, Lidia & López-Calva, Luis F., 2022. "The arithmetics and politics of domestic resource mobilization for poverty eradication," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    19. Prakash, Nishith, 2020. "The Impact of Employment Quotas on the Economic Lives of Disadvantaged Minorities in India," IZA Discussion Papers 13847, IZA Network @ LISER.
    20. Picault Julien, 2017. "Risk-Averse Managers, Labour Market Structures, Public Policies and Discrimination," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-36, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-15. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.