ABSTRACT
To circumvent this difficulty, the authors conduct a field experiment that builds on the correspondence testing methodology that has been primarily used in the past to study minority outcomes in the United Kingdom. Three main sets of questions arise when interpreting the results above. First, does a higher callback rate for White applicants imply that employers are discriminating against African-Americans? Second, does their design only isolate the effect of race or is the name manipulation conveying some other factors than race? Third, how do their results relate to different models of racial discrimination? Economic theories of discrimination can be classified into two main categories: taste-based and statistical discrimination models. The uniformity of the racial gap across occupations is also troubling for a statistical discrimination interpretation. This discussion suggests that perhaps other models may do a better job at explaining our findings.
