Insurance companies are in the business of discrimination. Insurers attempt to segregate insureds into separate risk pools based on their differences in risk profiles, first, so that they can charge different premiums to the different groups based on their risk and, second, to incentivize risk...

Broadly defined, affirmative action encompasses any measure that allocates resources through a process that takes into account individual membership in underrepresented groups, with a view to increasing the proportion of individuals from those groups in positions from which they have been...

When there has been past discrimination, minorities will be more able conditional on class than non-minorities. Because ability and class both affect educational attainment, however, higher ability minorities will earn less even after discrimination ends. Thus, the discrepancy in the ability of...

It is not too naive to believe that the use of affirmative action policies in the jury selection for the Rodney King beating trial of White police officers would have prevented the uprisings that followed their acquittal. The public outrage and riots that followed the verdict demonstrated the...

Affirmative action has been at the forefront of educational policies and to this day continues to enliven debates. For decades, schools have litigated over whether affirmative action can be used to create a diverse student body. Now, the litigation has shifted to whether affirmative action...

Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act (the “8(a) program”) is a federal contracting program that permits the government to award certain contracts to members of designated racial groups that own small businesses. Courts have denied facial challenges to the program, but have upheld...

In July 1995, the University of California Board of Regents voted to end affirmative action based on race and gender in admissions, hiring, and contracting. Recently, the Equal Opportunity Act introduced by the Republicans would abolish three decades of affirmative action programs initiated by...

We develop a framework to understand pre-employment credit screening through adverse selection in labor and credit markets. Workers differ in an unobservable characteristic that induces a positive correlation between labor productivity and repayment rates in credit markets. Firms therefore...