IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2412.14307.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Race Discrimination in Internet Advertising: Evidence From a Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Neil K. R. Sehgal
  • Dan Svirsky

Abstract

We present the results of an experiment documenting racial bias on Meta's Advertising Platform in Brazil and the United States. We find that darker skin complexions are penalized, leading to real economic consequences. For every \$1,000 an advertiser spends on ads with models with light-skin complexions, that advertiser would have to spend \$1,159 to achieve the same level of engagement using photos of darker skin complexion models. Meta's budget optimization tool reinforces these viewer biases. When pictures of models with light and dark complexions are allocated a shared budget, Meta funnels roughly 64\% of the budget towards photos featuring lighter skin complexions.

Suggested Citation

  • Neil K. R. Sehgal & Dan Svirsky, 2024. "Race Discrimination in Internet Advertising: Evidence From a Field Experiment," Papers 2412.14307, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2412.14307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.14307
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Devah Pager, 2003. "The mark of a criminal record," Natural Field Experiments 00319, The Field Experiments Website.
    2. Hanson, Andrew & Hawley, Zackary, 2011. "Do landlords discriminate in the rental housing market? Evidence from an internet field experiment in US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2-3), pages 99-114, September.
    3. Jennifer L. Doleac & Luke C.D. Stein, 2013. "The Visible Hand: Race and Online Market Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(11), pages 469-492, November.
    4. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Luca & Dan Svirsky, 2017. "Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 1-22, April.
    5. J. Aislinn Bohren & Alex Imas & Michael Rosenberg, 2019. "The Dynamics of Discrimination: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(10), pages 3395-3436, October.
    6. Anja Lambrecht & Catherine Tucker, 2019. "Algorithmic Bias? An Empirical Study of Apparent Gender-Based Discrimination in the Display of STEM Career Ads," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 2966-2981, July.
    7. William C. Horrace & Shawn M. Rohlin, 2016. "How Dark Is Dark? Bright Lights, Big City, Racial Profiling," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 226-232, May.
    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. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    2. Kevin Lang & Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer, 2020. "Race Discrimination: An Economic Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 68-89, Spring.
    3. Nicolás Ajzenman & Bruno Ferman & Sant’Anna Pedro C., 2023. "Discrimination in the Formation of Academic Networks: A Field Experiment on #EconTwitter," Working Papers 235, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    4. Yulia Evsyukova & Felix Rusche & Wladislaw Mill, 2023. "LinkedOut? A Field Experiment on Discrimination in Job Network Formation," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_482v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany, revised Oct 2024.
    5. Anthony Lepinteur & Giorgia Menta & Sofie R. Waltl, 2023. "Equal Price for Equal Place? Demand-Driven Racial Discrimination in the Housing Market," LISER Working Paper Series 2023-09, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    6. Melo, Vitor & Rocha, Hugo Vaca Pereira & Sigaud, Liam & Warren, Patrick L. & Gaddis, S. Michael, 2024. "Understanding Discrimination in College Admissions: A Field Experiment," SocArXiv 5ctms, Center for Open Science.
    7. Andrew Hanson & Zackary Hawley, 2023. "Restricted access: Real estate agent response to client race, ethnicity, gender, and side of market," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(4), pages 855-890, July.
    8. Adair Morse & Karen Pence, 2021. "Technological Innovation and Discrimination in Household Finance," Springer Books, in: Raghavendra Rau & Robert Wardrop & Luigi Zingales (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Technological Finance, pages 783-808, Springer.
    9. Gaddis, S. Michael & DiRago, Nicholas V., 2021. "Audit Studies of Housing in the United States: Established, Emerging, and Future Research," SocArXiv fn4ta, Center for Open Science.
    10. Morris, J., 2023. "The Impact of Qualitative Reviews on Racial Statistical Discrimination: Evidence from Airbnb," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2331, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Rich, Judy, 2014. "What Do Field Experiments of Discrimination in Markets Tell Us? A Meta Analysis of Studies Conducted since 2000," IZA Discussion Papers 8584, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Chen, Yutong, 2024. "Does the gig economy discriminate against women? Evidence from physicians in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    13. Priyanga Gunarathne & Huaxia Rui & Abraham Seidmann, 2022. "Racial Bias in Customer Service: Evidence from Twitter," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(1), pages 43-54, March.
    14. Button, Patrick & Walker, Brigham, 2020. "Employment discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    15. Ingrid Gould Ellen & Stephen L. Ross, 2018. "Race and the City," Working Papers 2018-022, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    16. Judd B. Kessler & Corinne Low & Colin D. Sullivan, 2019. "Incentivized Resume Rating: Eliciting Employer Preferences without Deception," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3713-3744, November.
    17. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth, 2023. "Beliefs about Racial Discrimination and Support for Pro-Black Policies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(1), pages 40-53, January.
    18. Ruomeng Cui & Jun Li & Dennis J. Zhang, 2020. "Reducing Discrimination with Reviews in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from Field Experiments on Airbnb," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1071-1094, March.
    19. Siddique, Abu & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Zenou, Yves, 2023. "Market competition and discrimination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    20. Kakar, Venoo & Voelz, Joel & Wu, Julia & Franco, Julisa, 2018. "The Visible Host: Does race guide Airbnb rental rates in San Francisco?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 25-40.

    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:arx:papers:2412.14307. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.