IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/pennca/97-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Eliminating Race Differences in School Attainment and Labor Market Success

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Between 1940 and 1980, the average school attainment of black men increased by about 1.5 years every decade, about .5 years more than for white men. Similarly, over the same period real income more than quadrupled for black men, while increasing two-and-one-half times for white men. However, considerable differences remain. In 1993, the percent of 25 to 29 year old black males who were college graduates was only half that of white males of the same age (12.6 percent relative to 24.4 percent) and earnings among 25 to 34 year old black males were only 83 percent of that of white males of the same age. This paper structurally estimates a dynamic model of schooling, work and occupational choice decisions over the life cycle that is capable of distinguishing between a number of possible explanations for the current disparities in schooling and earnings and that also permits an evaluation of the potential success of alternative interventions that might be used to equalize differences in schooling and labor market outcomes. We particularly consider the issue of the responsiveness of black male youths to monetary school performance-based incentives. We show that a relatively modest incentive scheme, providing separate bonuses for high school and college graduation, can induce a substantial response in black school attainment that leads to a near equalization in the school attainment distributions of blacks and whites.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael P. Keane & Kenneth Wolpin, "undated". "Eliminating Race Differences in School Attainment and Labor Market Success," CARESS Working Papres 97-5, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
  • Handle: RePEc:wop:pennca:97-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J & Masterov, Dimitriy V, 2005. "Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 1-39, April.
    2. Terry Sicular, 1998. "Capital Flight and Foreign Investment: Two Tales From China and Russia," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 589-602, July.
    3. William J. Collins, 2001. "Race, Roosevelt, and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 272-286, March.
    4. Bethany Everett & David Rehkopf & Richard Rogers, 2013. "The Nonlinear Relationship Between Education and Mortality: An Examination of Cohort, Race/Ethnic, and Gender Differences," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(6), pages 893-917, December.
    5. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo, 2014. "Slavery, education, and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 197-209.
    6. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    7. Kenneth Y. Chay, 1998. "The Impact of Federal Civil Rights Policy on Black Economic Progress: Evidence from the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 608-632, July.
    8. Scott Delhommer & Domonkos F. Vamossy, 2024. "Effect of State and Local Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination Laws on Labor Market Differentials," Papers 2404.03794, arXiv.org.
    9. Robert A. Margo, 1993. "Explaining Black-White Wage Convergence, 1940-1950: The Role of the Great Compression," NBER Historical Working Papers 0044, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Patrick Button & Philip Armour & Simon Hollands, 2023. "Estimating the Effects of the ADA Amendments Act on the Hiring and Termination of Individuals with Disabilities, Using New Disability Categorizations," Upjohn Working Papers 22-377, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    11. Audra J. Bowlus & Zvi Eckstein, 2002. "Discrimination and Skill Differences in an Equilibrium Search Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1309-1345, November.
    12. Kenneth Y. Chay & Jonathan Guryan & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2014. "Early Life Environment and Racial Inequality in Education and Earnings in the United States," Working Paper Series WP-2014-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    13. Orley Ashenfelter & William J. Collins & Albert Yoon, 2006. "Evaluating the Role of Brown v. Board of Education in School Equalization, Desegregation, and the Income of African Americans," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 8(2), pages 213-248.
    14. Celeste K. Carruthers & Marianne H. Wanamaker, 2017. "Separate and Unequal in the Labor Market: Human Capital and the Jim Crow Wage Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(3), pages 655-696.
    15. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson & Daniel Sturm, 2005. "Political Competition and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence from the United States," NBER Working Papers 11484, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Margo, Robert A., 2016. "Obama, Katrina, and the Persistence of Racial Inequality," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 301-341, June.
    17. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1920 to 1970," Macroeconomics 0004035, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Billur Aksoy & Christopher S. Carpenter & Dario Sansone, 2022. "Understanding Labor Market Discrimination Against Transgender People: Evidence from a Double List Experiment and a Survey," NBER Working Papers 30483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Judith K. Hellerstein & David Neumark, 2008. "Workplace Segregation in the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Skill," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 459-477, August.
    20. Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Racial Discrimination and Competition," NBER Working Papers 14273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wop:pennca:97-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/caupaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.