IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v129y2019i619p1182-1220..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Redistribution Without Distortion: Evidence from an Affirmative Action Programme at a Large Brazilian University

Author

Listed:
  • Fernanda Estevan
  • Thomas Gall
  • Louis-Philippe Morin

Abstract

We examine an innovative affirmative action policy at UNICAMP, a large and highly ranked Brazilian university, designed to enhance access for disadvantaged (public high school) applicants. The university awarded bonus points to targeted applicants in their admission exam. We assess the effect of this policy on the composition of admitted students and investigate possible behavioural responses in terms of examination preparation effort. We find that the policy significantly increased the admission probability of public high school applicants and redistributed university admission towards applicants from families with lower socio-economic status. Surprisingly, we find little evidence of behavioural reactions regarding examination preparation effort.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernanda Estevan & Thomas Gall & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2019. "Redistribution Without Distortion: Evidence from an Affirmative Action Programme at a Large Brazilian University," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1182-1220.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:619:p:1182-1220.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecoj.12578
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 2005. "Would the Elimination of Affirmative Action Affect Highly Qualified Minority Applicants? Evidence from California and Texas," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(3), pages 416-434, April.
    2. Andrew Schotter & Keith Weigelt, 1992. "Asymmetric Tournaments, Equal Opportunity Laws, and Affirmative Action: Some Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 511-539.
    3. Ben Backes, 2012. "Do Affirmative Action Bans Lower Minority College Enrollment and Attainment?: Evidence from Statewide Bans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(2), pages 435-455.
    4. Christopher S. Cotton & Brent R. Hickman & Joseph P. Price, 2022. "Affirmative Action and Human Capital Investment: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 157-185.
    5. Louis-Philippe Morin, 2015. "Do Men and Women Respond Differently to Competition? Evidence from a Major Education Reform," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 443-491.
    6. Cameron, A. Colin & Gelbach, Jonah B. & Miller, Douglas L., 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249.
    7. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    8. Bertrand, Marianne & Hanna, Rema & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2010. "Affirmative action in education: Evidence from engineering college admissions in India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 16-29, February.
    9. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim, 2016. "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Trade-Off," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 3-51, March.
    10. Hao Jia, 2008. "A stochastic derivation of the ratio form of contest success functions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 125-130, June.
    11. Qiang Fu & Jingfeng Lu, 2012. "Micro foundations of multi-prize lottery contests: a perspective of noisy performance ranking," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(3), pages 497-517, March.
    12. Stein, William E, 2002. "Asymmetric Rent-Seeking with More Than Two Contestants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 325-336, December.
    13. Franke, Jörg, 2012. "Affirmative action in contest games," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 105-118.
    14. Peter Hinrichs, 2012. "The Effects of Affirmative Action Bans on College Enrollment, Educational Attainment, and the Demographic Composition of Universities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 712-722, August.
    15. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    16. Calsamiglia, Caterina & Franke, Jörg & Rey-Biel, Pedro, 2013. "The incentive effects of affirmative action in a real-effort tournament," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 15-31.
    17. David Neumark & Harry Holzer, 2000. "Assessing Affirmative Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 483-568, September.
    18. Thomas Gall & Patrick Legros & Andrew Newman, 2015. "College Diversity and Investment Incentives," Working Papers 2015-001, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    19. Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn, 1993. "Antidiscrimination Enforcement and the Problem of Patronization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 92-98, May.
    20. Roland G. Fryer Jr. & Glenn C. Loury, 2005. "Affirmative Action and Its Mythology," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 147-162, Summer.
    21. McFadden, Daniel, 1974. "The measurement of urban travel demand," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 303-328, November.
    22. Long, M.C.Mark C., 2004. "College applications and the effect of affirmative action," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 319-342.
    23. Roland G. Fryer Jr. & Glenn C. Loury, 2013. "Valuing Diversity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(4), pages 747-774.
    24. Dickson, Lisa M., 2006. "Does ending affirmative action in college admissions lower the percent of minority students applying to college?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 109-119, February.
    25. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim & Maria Zhu, 2015. "Affirmative Action in Undergraduate Education," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 487-518, August.
    26. Andrew M. Francis & Maria Tannuri-Pianto, 2012. "Using Brazil’s Racial Continuum to Examine the Short-Term Effects of Affirmative Action in Higher Education," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(3), pages 754-784.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fernanda Estevan & Thomas Gall & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2019. "Can Affirmative Action Affect Major Choice?," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-324, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    2. Priscila S. dos Santos & Kalinca L. Becker & Sibele V. de Oliveira, 2023. "Race‐based affirmative action for higher education in Brazil: Impact assessment on performance, time, and delay in completion," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 247-267, February.
    3. Mitra Akhtari & Natalie Bau & Jean-William Laliberté, 2024. "Affirmative Action and Precollege Human Capital," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 1-32, January.
    4. Arenas, Andreu & Calsamiglia, Caterina & Loviglio, Annalisa, 2021. "What is at stake without high-stakes exams? Students’ evaluation and admission to college at the time of COVID-19," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Shanglyu Deng & Hanming Fang & Qiang Fu & Zenan Wu, 2023. "Information Favoritism and Scoring Bias in Contests," PIER Working Paper Archive 23-002, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    6. Fernanda Estevan & Lucas Finamor, 2022. "School closures and educational path: how the Covid-19 pandemic affected transitions to college," Papers 2210.00138, arXiv.org.
    7. Francisco Costa & Letícia Nunes & Fabio Miessi Sanches, 2024. "How to Attract Physicians to Underserved Areas? Policy Recommendations from a Structural Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(1), pages 36-52, January.
    8. Machado, Cecilia & Szerman, Christiane, 2016. "Centralized Admission and the Student-College Match," IZA Discussion Papers 10251, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Soledad Giardili, 2018. "University Quotas and Peers’ Achievement," Working Papers 854, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    10. Ursula Mello, 2021. "Affirmative Action and the Choice of Schools," Working Papers 1285, Barcelona School of Economics.
    11. Cecilia Machado & Germ'an Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Direct and Spillover Effects of Large-scale Affirmative Action at an Elite Brazilian University," Papers 2305.02513, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    12. Machado, Cecilia & Szerman, Christiane, 2021. "Centralized college admissions and student composition," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    13. Lépine, Andrea & Estevan, Fernanda, 2021. "Do ability peer effects matter for academic and labor market outcomes?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    14. Del Rey Elena & Estevan Fernanda, 2020. "Assessing Higher Education Policy in Brazil: A Mixed Oligopoly Approach," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-16, January.
    15. Rodrigo Zeidan & Silvio Luiz de Almeida & Inácio Bó & Neil Lewis, 2024. "Racial and income‐based affirmative action in higher education admissions: Lessons from the Brazilian experience," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 956-972, July.
    16. Mello, Ursula, 2023. "Affirmative action and the choice of schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    17. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    18. Machado, Cecilia & Reyes, Germán & Riehl, Evan, 2022. "Alumni Job Networks at Elite Universities and the Efficacy of Affirmative Action," IZA Discussion Papers 15026, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Cecilia Machado & Germán Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Efficacy of Large-Scale Affirmative Action at Elite Universities," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0311, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    20. Najam, Rafiuddin, 2024. "Closing the gap: Effect of a gender quota on women’s access to education in Afghanistan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    21. Oliveira, Rodrigo & Santos, Alei & Severnini, Edson, 2024. "Bridging the gap: Mismatch effects and catch-up dynamics under a Brazilian college affirmative action program," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    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. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    2. Najam, Rafiuddin, 2024. "Closing the gap: Effect of a gender quota on women’s access to education in Afghanistan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    3. Peter Arcidiacono & Michael Lovenheim, 2016. "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Trade-Off," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 3-51, March.
    4. Zachary Bleemer, 2022. "Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility after California’s Proposition 209," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(1), pages 115-160.
    5. Francis-Tan, Andrew & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2018. "Black Movement: Using discontinuities in admissions to study the effects of college quality and affirmative action," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 97-116.
    6. Subedi, Mukti Nath & Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa & Ulker, Aydogan, 2022. "Effects of Affirmative Action on Educational and Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Nepal's Reservation Policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 443-463.
    7. Kate Antonovics & Ben Backes, 2013. "Were Minority Students Discouraged from Applying to University of California Campuses after the Affirmative Action Ban?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(2), pages 208-250, April.
    8. Peter Hinrichs, 2020. "Affirmative Action and Racial Segregation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(2), pages 239-267.
    9. Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2018. "Do Equal Employment Opportunity Statements Backfire? Evidence From A Natural Field Experiment On Job-Entry Decisions," NBER Working Papers 25035, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jörg Franke, 2007. "Does Affirmative Action Reduce Effort Incentives? A Contest Game Analysis," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 711.07, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    11. David Welsch, 2012. "Affirmative Action in College Admission Decisions and the Distribution of Human Capital," Working Papers 12-02, UW-Whitewater, Department of Economics.
    12. Maria Eduarda Tannuri Pianto & Andrew Francis, 2011. "The Redistributive Efficacy Ofaffirmative Action: Exploring The Role Of Race And Socioeconomic Statusin College Admissions," Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 38th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 218, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    13. Vieira, Renato Schwambach & Arends-Kuenning, Mary, 2019. "Affirmative action in Brazilian universities: Effects on the enrollment of targeted groups," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Hinrichs, Peter, 2014. "Affirmative action bans and college graduation rates," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 43-52.
    15. Yagan, Danny, 2016. "Supply vs. demand under an affirmative action ban: Estimates from UC law schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 38-50.
    16. Das, Sabyasachi & Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Saroy, Rajas, 2023. "Does affirmative action in politics hinder performance? Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 370-405.
    17. Francis, Andrew M. & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2012. "The redistributive equity of affirmative action: Exploring the role of race, socioeconomic status, and gender in college admissions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 45-55.
    18. Hill, Andrew J., 2017. "State affirmative action bans and STEM degree completions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 31-40.
    19. Cecilia Machado & Germ'an Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Direct and Spillover Effects of Large-scale Affirmative Action at an Elite Brazilian University," Papers 2305.02513, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    20. Ratul Lahkar & Rezina Sultana, 2020. "Affirmative Action in Large Population Contests," Working Papers 40, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:619:p:1182-1220.. 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: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.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.