The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique is widely used to identify and quantify the separate contributions of group differences in measurable characteristics, such as education, experience, marital status, and geographical differences to racial and gender gaps in outcomes. The technique...

This paper examines how the level and dispersion of self-reported happiness has evolved over the period 1972-2006. While there has been no increase in aggregate happiness, inequality in happiness has fallen substantially since the 1970s. There have been large changes in the level of happiness...

In this paper we study the relationship between ethnic exclusion and earnings in Urban Peru. Our approach to the concept of ethnicity involves the usage of instruments in many of its several dimensions: mother tongue, parental background, religion, migration events and race. In order to...

We investigate the extent and underlying mechanisms of how race beliefs associated with applicants' names affect hiring decisions. Using nationally representative data, we find widespread beliefs that people with names perceived to be Black possess lower levels of education, productivity and...

We decompose the ethnic pay gap in Great Britain across the distribution of hourly wages, yielding a detailed insight into differences between groups and how these vary over pay percentiles and through time. While some groups experience reductions in the pay gap consistent with lower...

In this paper we study the relationship between ethnic exclusion and earnings in Urban Peru. Our approach to the concept of ethnicity involves the usage of instruments in many of its several dimensions: mother tongue, parental background, religion, migration events and race. In order to...

We explore how umpires' racial/ethnic preferences are expressed in their evaluation of Major League Baseball pitchers. Controlling for umpire, pitcher, batter and catcher fixed effects and many other factors, strikes are more likely to be called if the umpire and pitcher match race/ethnicity....

Past studies have tested the claim that blacks are the last hired during periods of economic growth and the first fired in recessions by examining the movement of relative unemployment rates over the business cycle. Any conclusion drawn from this type of analysis must be viewed as tentative...

We investigate the relative significance of differences in cognitive skills and discrimination in explaining racial/ethnic wage gaps. We show that cognitive test scores taken prior to entering the labor market are influenced by schooling. Adjusting the scores for racial/ethnic differences in...

This paper relaxes the assumption of homogeneous rates of return to schooling by employing nonparametric kernel regression. This approach allows us to examine the differences in rates of return to education both across and within groups. Similar to previous studies we find that on average blacks...