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Can Minorities Escape Wage Discrimination by Forming Firms?

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  • James Fain

    (Oklahoma State University)

Abstract

The persistence of wage discrimination raises a number of questions, including the following: if majority-owned firms continue to discriminate against minority workers, is it possible for the minority workers to escape that discrimination by forming a firm? Non-discriminating minority firms could then provide a refuge for other minority workers. In Becker’s classic treatment of discrimination by firms he posits a variation of this idea. He suggests that if the number of jobs at non-discriminating firms is greater than the number of minority workers, then these minority workers will all find their way to and be employed by the non-discriminating firms. In this paper I employ simulations to examine the extent to which minority workers can successfully find employment at non-discriminating minority firms in the presence of labor market frictions. These simulations also demonstrate the importance of access to capital for minority entrepreneurs.

Suggested Citation

  • James Fain, 2017. "Can Minorities Escape Wage Discrimination by Forming Firms?," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 50(3), pages 425-445, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:50:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10614-016-9592-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10614-016-9592-1
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agent-based simulation; Discrimination; Endogenous firm formation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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