Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Analysis of Discrimination

研究人员提出了使用实验或准实验方法来研究歧视的项目。在之前的工作中，他们根据招聘广告发送简历，并实验性地改变姓名（明显是非裔美国人或白人）和技能来衡量歧视。第一个项目扩展了这项研究，使用了更多的非裔美国人、西班牙裔和白人的名字，这些名字与父母的教育程度相匹配。它测试的是，即使在保持名字所暗示的社会背景不变的情况下，歧视是否仍然存在。第二个项目利用印度人的简历往往包括标准化考试成绩这一事实，对这种方法进行了改进。这样就可以更仔细地研究种姓或宗教如何影响雇主对技能的解释。种姓也经常在简历上明确说明，所以种姓揭示的顺序可以通过实验来操纵（在简历的早期或晚期），允许测试顺序是否影响歧视的程度和对技能的解释。其他三个项目调查各种歧视补救措施在实践中的效果。其中一篇研究了印度大学的平权行动制度，在那里，特定种姓的考试分数门槛决定了录取。因为几乎不高于或低于阈值的学生实际上是随机分配大学录取的，所以可以使用回归不连续设计来估计所有种姓的教育回报，并衡量该计划的私人收益和成本。门槛学生的弟弟妹妹的结果也提供了一种衡量榜样作用的方法。另一个项目研究接触是否会减少歧视。它关注的是麻省理工学院的一个项目，志愿者在几个月的时间里辅导贫困的高中生。重要的是，志愿者是随机分配给学生的，这意味着一些导师与非裔美国人有密切的联系，而另一些则没有。目的是调查过去的导师，衡量他们的显性种族态度和隐性歧视程度。最后的项目借鉴了心理学中去偏见的文献，以了解不同的决策规则是否会影响歧视的程度。它建立在与南非一家银行的关系之上，这家银行希望实验性地操纵其分行经理如何做出贷款决定。其目标是衡量获得贷款的人以及这些贷款的盈利能力的变化。

The researchers propose projects that use experimental or quasi-experimental methods to study discrimination. In prior work, they sent out resumes in response to help-wanted ads and experimentally varied name (distinctively African-American or White) and skills to measure discrimination. The first project expands on this study and uses a much larger set of African-American, Hispanic and White names that are matched by parental education. It tests whether discrimination persists even when holding constant the social background implied by the name. The second project refines this methodology by exploiting the fact that resumes in India tend to include standardized test scores. This allows a more careful examination of how caste or religion affects employers' interpretation of skills. Caste is also often explicitly stated on the resume so the order of caste revelation can be experimentally manipulated (early or late in the resume), allowing a test of whether order affects the extent of discrimination and the interpretation of skills. The other three projects investigate how well various remedies for discrimination work in practice. One studies the affirmative action system in Indian colleges, where caste-specific test score thresholds determine admission. Because students barely above and below the thresholds are effectively randomly assigned college admission, a regression discontinuity design can be used to estimate the returns to schooling for all castes and measure the program's private benefits and costs. Outcomes for younger siblings of threshold students provide a way to also measure role-model effects. Another project examines whether contact reduces discrimination. It focuses on an MIT program where volunteers tutor poorer high school students over several months. Importantly, volunteers are randomly assigned to students, meaning that some tutors have intense contact with African Americans while others do not. The goal is to survey past tutors and measure their explicit race attitudes and implicit discrimination level. The final project draws on the de-biasing literature in psychology to understand whether different decision making rules can affect the extent of discrimination. It builds on a relationship with a bank in South Africa that wants to experimentally manipulate how its branch managers make loan decisions. The goal is to measure changes in who gets loans and in the profitability of these loans.