This paper examines whether school COVID-19 policies influenced enrollment differently by student age and race/ethnicity. Unlike much prior research, we (i) analyze enrollments for virtually the entire U.S. public school population for both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, (ii) compare...

This paper estimates a dynamic model of schooling attainment to investigate the sources of discrepancy by race and ethnicity in college attendance. When the returns to college education rose, college enrollment of whites responded much more quickly than that of minorities. Parental income is a...

Most research on birth outcomes has found a direct relationship between appropriate prenatal care and increased birthweight. Researchers concede, however, that without a randomized design, which is clearly unethical, one cannot determine how much of the association is due to the medical...

We use linked birth and education records from Florida to investigate how the identification of childhood disabilities varies by race and school racial composition. Using a series of decompositions, we find that black and Hispanic students are identified with disabilities at lower rates than are...

Discrimination in lending can occur either in face-to-face decisions or in algorithmic scoring. We provide a workable interpretation of the courts' legitimate-business-necessity defense of statistical discrimination. We then estimate the extent of racial/ethnic discrimination in the largest...

Detecting racial discrimination using observational data is challenging because of the presence of unobservables that may be correlated with race. Using data made public in the SFFA v. Harvard case, we estimate discrimination in a setting where this concern is mitigated. Namely, we show that...

Using a large field experiment, we show that racial composition of employer neighborhoods predicts employment discrimination patterns in a direction suggesting in-group bias. Our data also show racial disparities in the geographic distribution of job postings. Simulations illustrate how these...

We use confidential and restricted-access data from the Kauffman Firm Survey and matched administrative data on credit scores to explore racial disparities in access to capital for new business ventures. The novel results on racial inequality in startup financing indicate that black-owned...

This paper studies differences in receipt and take-up of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits among white and Black individuals. We combine state-level UI regulations with data containing detailed information on individuals' work history and UI receipt. Black individuals who separate from a job...

The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that race-based preferences in public university admissions are constitutional. But debates over the wisdom of affirmative action continue. Opponents of these policies argue that preferences are detrimental to minority students -- that by placing these...