The main findings of this paper are that despite the existence of various affirmative action programs designed to improve the position of women and minorities in public construction, little has changed in the last twenty five years. We present evidence showing that where race conscious...

In the more than 30 years following the all-volunteer force (AVF), the proportion of women serving in the military has increased from 1.8 percent just before the AVF to 14.2 percent in 2008. The majority of women do not stay in the military for a 20-year or longer career; like men, most women...

This article presents the first large-scale audit study of discrimination against openly gay men in the United States. Pairs of fictitious résumés were sent in response to 1,769 job postings in seven states. One résumé in each pair was randomly assigned experience in a gay campus...

Previous estimates of inequality of opportunity (IOp) are lower bounds because of the unobservability of the full set of endowed characteristics beyond the sphere of individual responsibility. Knowing the true size of unfair IOp, however, is important for the acceptance of (some) inequality and...

When multiple forces potentially underlie discriminatory behavior, pinning down the precise sources becomes a challenge, making proposed policy solutions speculative. This study introduces an empirical approach, tightly linked to theory, to dissect two specific channels of discrimination:...

We develop a model of discrimination that allows us to interpret observed differences in outcomes across groups, conditional on passing a screening test, as taste-based (employer,) statistical, or customer discrimination. We apply this framework to investigate the nature of non-white...

Numerous studies have examined patterns of gender inequality in organizational advancement, with some showing results indicative of “glass ceilings,” where gender disparities are strong at the upper reaches of the organization, while others suggest “sticky floors,” where the gender...

Using a sample of professional baseball players from 1871-2007, this paper aims at analyzing a longstanding empirical observation that married men earn significantly more than their single counterparts holding all else equal (the "marriage premium"). Baseball is a unique case study because it...