We show how small initial wealth differences between low skilled black and white workers can generate large differences in their labor-market outcomes. This even occurs in the absence of a taste for discrimination against blacks or exogenous differences in the distance to jobs. Because of the...

This paper examines differences in two important components of non-wage compensation, employer provided health insurance and pensions, across African Americans and the whites in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth...

We investigate the effect of skin tone on employment probabilities in a longitudinal data set. Using an objective measure of skin tone from a light-spectrometer and a self-reported measure of race we find that over time the effect of skin tone on employment has diminished. These results hold...

Nearly half of U.S. employers test job applicants and workers for drugs. I use variation in the timing and nature of drug testing regulation to study discrimination against blacks related to perceived drug use. Black employment in the testing sector is suppressed in the absence of testing,...

We examine racial and ethnic inequality in offers of employer provided fringe benefits (health insurance, life insurance and pension). Restricting to full-time workers in the private sector, we find that African Americans are significantly less likely to get fringe benefit offers than...

The wage gap between African-Americans and white Americans is substantial in the US and has slightly narrowed over the past 30 years. Today, blacks have almost achieved the same educational level as whites. There is reason to believe that discrimination driven by prejudice plays a part in...

The paper investigates the link between the over-exposure of African immigrants to unemployment in France and their under-representation in jobs in contact with customers. We build a two-sector matching model with ethnic sector-specific preferences, economy-wide employer discrimination, and...

According to Becker's (1957) theory of taste-based employer discrimination, pure economic rents are necessary for discrimination to be observed in the labor market. Increased competition and reduced rents in the market for final goods should therefore lead to reduced labor market discrimination....

It is almost universally assumed that race is an exogenously given trait that is not subject to change. But as race is most often self-reported by individuals who must weigh the costs and benefits of associating with minority groups, we ask whether racial self-identification responds to economic...

When employers' explicit gender requests were unexpectedly removed from a Chinese job board overnight, pools of successful applicants became more integrated: women's (men's) share of call-backs to jobs that had requested men (women) rose by 63 (146) percent. The removal 'worked' in this sense...