Black children in the U.S. are twice as likely as white children to spend time in foster care. Such racial disparities raise concerns of discrimination, but might also reflect differences in the underlying need for intervention. This paper estimates unwarranted disparities (UDs)--racial...

Ten percent of Black children in the U.S. spend time in foster care--twice the rate of white children. We estimate unwarranted disparities in foster care placement decisions, adjusting for differences in the potential for future maltreatment by leveraging the quasi-random assignment of cases to...