Valuing Diversity

This paper explores the economics of diversity-enhancing policies. A model is proposed in which heterogeneous agents, distinguished by skill level and social identity, purchase productive opportunities in a competitive market. We analyze policies designed to raise the status of a disadvantaged identity group. When agent identity is contractible, efficient policy grants preferred access to slots but offers no direct assistance for acquiring skills. When identity is not contractible, efficient policy provides universal subsidies to skill development when the fraction of the disadvantaged group at the skill development margin is larger than their share at the slot assignment margin.

[1]  T. Sowell.  Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study , 2004 .

[2]  A. Deshpande.  Affirmative Action in India and the United States , 2005 .

[3]  Stephen Coate,et al.  Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes? , 1993 .

[4]  James C. Blackburn.  The Shape of the River , 1999 .

[5]  David K. Shipler,et al.  A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America@@@America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible , 2001 .

[6]  Roland G. Fryer,et al.  Affirmative Action and its Mythology , 2005 .

[7]  S. Thernstrom,et al.  No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning , 2003 .

[8]  J. C. Brown,et al.  The Anatomy of Racial Inequality , 2003 .

[9]  David Neumark,et al.  Assessing Affirmative Action , 1999 .

[10]  Andrea Moro,et al.  Affirmative Action in a Competitive Economy , 2000, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[11]  A rmative Action in a Competitive Economy , 1999 .

[12]  Richard W. Power.  Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India , 1985 .

[13]  Finis Welch.  Employment Quotas for Minorities , 1976, Journal of Political Economy.

[14]  Roland G. Fryer,et al.  An Economic Analysis of Color-Blind Affirmative Action , 2007 .

[15]  Richard Startz,et al.  Private Discrimination and Social Intervention in Competitive Labor Markets , 1983 .

[16]  R. Klitgaard.  Elitism and Meritocracy in Developing Countries: Selection Policies for Higher Education , 1986 .

[17]  Erik Eyster,et al.  Does Banning Affirmative Action Lower College Student Quality , 2003 .

[18]  Does Banning Af ® rmative Action Lower College Student Quality ? , 2005 .

[19]  Roland G. Fryer,et al.  Affirmative action in winner-take-all markets , 2005 .