IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v12y1998i2p23-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evidence on Discrimination in Consumer Markets

Author

Listed:
  • John Yinger

Abstract

Economists have contributed to the measurement of racial and ethnic discrimination in consumption and to the identification of its causes, especially in housing markets and car sales. To test the hypothesis that discrimination exists, economists have turned to regression analysis and to audits, a matched-pair survey technique. Economists also have developed audit-based measures of the incidence and severity of discrimination. Audit studies find continuing high levels of discrimination against minorities in the marketing of available housing and in car prices. Audit studies also find that discrimination can be caused both by economic agents' prejudice and by their search for profits.

Suggested Citation

  • John Yinger, 1998. "Evidence on Discrimination in Consumer Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 23-40, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:12:y:1998:i:2:p:23-40
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.12.2.23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.12.2.23
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Fix & Raymond Struyk, 1993. "Clear and convincing evidence: Measurement of discrimination in america," Natural Field Experiments 00241, The Field Experiments Website.
    2. Ayres, Ian & Siegelman, Peter, 1995. "Race and Gender Discrimination in Bargaining for a New Car," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 304-321, June.
    3. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou, 1996. "Dealer Price Discrimination in New Car Purchases: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 622-654, June.
    4. Kathryn Graddy, 1995. "Testing for Imperfect Competition at the Fulton Fish Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(1), pages 75-92, Spring.
    5. Chambers, Daniel N., 1992. "The racial housing price differential and racially transitional neighborhoods," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 214-232, September.
    6. Becker, Gary S., 1971. "The Economics of Discrimination," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226041162, April.
    7. Newburger, Harriet B., 1989. "Discrimination by a profit-maximizing real estate broker in response to white prejudice," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-19, July.
    8. Killingsworth, Mark R, 1993. "Analyzing Employment Discrimination: From the Seminar Room to the Courtroom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 67-72, May.
    9. Ashenfelter, Orley & Oaxaca, Ronald, 1987. "The Economics of Discrimination: Economists Enter the Courtroom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 321-325, May.
    10. Kenney, Genevieve M & Wissoker, Douglas A, 1994. "An Analysis of the Correlates of Discrimination Facing Young Hispanic Job-Seekers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 674-683, June.
    11. George Galster, 1990. "Racial steering by real estate agents: Mechanisms and motives," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 39-63, June.
    12. Yinger, John, 1986. "Measuring Racial Discrimination with Fair Housing Audits: Caught in the Act," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 881-893, December.
    13. Page Marianne, 1995. "Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in Urban Housing Markets: Evidence from a Recent Audit Study," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 183-206, September.
    14. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    15. Canopy Roychoudhury & Allen C. Goodman, 1996. "Evidence of Racial Discrimination in Different Dimensions of Owner‐Occupied Housing Search," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 161-178.
    16. Turner, Margery Austin & Mikelsons, Maris, 1992. "Patterns of racial steering in four metropolitan areas," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 199-234, September.
    17. Roychoudhury, Canopy & Goodman, Allen C., 1992. "An ordered probit model for estimating racial discrimination through fair housing audits," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 358-373, December.
    18. Schwab, Stewart, 1986. "Is Statistical Discrimination Efficient?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 228-234, March.
    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. Stephen L. Ross, 2003. "What Is Known about Testing for Discrimination: Lessons Learned by Comparing across Different Markets," Working papers 2003-21, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2003.
    2. Jan Ondrich & Stephen Ross & John Yinger, 2003. "Now You See It, Now You Don't: Why Do Real Estate Agents Withhold Available Houses from Black Customers?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 854-873, November.
    3. Jan Ondrich & Alex Stricker & John Yinger, 1998. "Do Real Estate Brokers Choose to Discriminate? Evidence from the 1989 Housing Discrimination Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 880-901, April.
    4. Antecol, Heather & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2008. "Racial and ethnic discrimination in local consumer markets: Exploiting the army's procedures for matching personnel to duty locations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 496-509, September.
    5. Ondrich, Jan & Ross, Stephen L. & Yinger, John, 2000. "How Common is Housing Discrimination? Improving on Traditional Measures," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 470-500, May.
    6. Choi, Seok Joon & Ondrich, Jan & Yinger, John, 2005. "Do rental agents discriminate against minority customers? Evidence from the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-26, March.
    7. Stephen L. Ross, 2005. "The Continuing Practice and Impact of Discrimination," Working papers 2005-19, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2006.
    8. Lopez Barrera, E., 2018. "Hispanics immigrants in the fields: is discrimination a barrier to get non-agricultural jobs?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 276016, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Ondrich, Jan & Stricker, Alex & Yinger, John, 1999. "Do Landlords Discriminate? The Incidence and Causes of Racial Discrimination in Rental Housing Markets," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 185-204, September.
    10. Auspurg, Katrin & Hinz, Thomas & Schmid, Laura, 2017. "Contexts and conditions of ethnic discrimination: Evidence from a field experiment in a German housing market," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 26-36.
    11. Carlsson, Magnus & Fumarco, Luca & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2013. "Artifactual Evidence of Discrimination in Correspondence Studies? A Replication of the Neumark Method," IZA Discussion Papers 7619, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    13. Caitlin Knowles Myers & Marcus Bellows & Hiba Fakhoury & Douglas Hale & Alexander Hall & Kaitlin Ofman, 2010. "Ladies first? A field study of discrimination in coffee shops," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(14), pages 1761-1769.
    14. Brian Rubineau & Yoon Kang, 2012. "Bias in White: A Longitudinal Natural Experiment Measuring Changes in Discrimination," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 660-677, April.
    15. Laouénan, Morgane, 2014. "'Can't Get Enough': Prejudice, Contact Jobs and the Racial Wage Gap in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 8006, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Ali M. Ahmed & Lina Andersson & Mats Hammarstedt, 2010. "Can Discrimination in the Housing Market Be Reduced by Increasing the Information about the Applicants?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(1), pages 79-90.
    17. Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche, 2015. "Crossing Boundaries, Displacing Previous Knowledge and Claiming Superiority: Is the Economics of Discrimination a Conquest of Economics Imperialism?," STOREPapers 5_2015, Associazione Italiana per la Storia dell'Economia Politica - StorEP.
    18. Umar Abdullahi Ahmed & Most Asikha Aktar & Md Mahmudul Alam, 2021. "Racial Discrimination and Poverty Reduction for Sustainable Development," Post-Print hal-03520071, HAL.
    19. Laura Giuliano & David I. Levine & Jonathan Leonard, 2009. "Manager Race and the Race of New Hires," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(4), pages 589-631, October.
    20. List John A., 2007. "Field Experiments: A Bridge between Lab and Naturally Occurring Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-47, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

    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:aea:jecper:v:12:y:1998:i:2:p:23-40. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.