What's in a Name? Does Racial or Gender Discrimination in Marking Exist?

Arbeitspapier

We study whether racial or gender discrimination in marking exists at universities by conducting an experiment at a major Australian university where we randomly assigned names indicative of White, Chinese or Adopter identities (comprised of a White first name and Chinese surname) and male or female gender to real exam coversheets and recruited university graders to mark these exams. We find that the most economically-significant evidence of discrimination is found at grade thresholds. Exam scripts with Chinese and Adopter names are less likely than White names to receive a mark just above a grade threshold. Conversely, scripts with Chinese names receive a small marking bonus on average compared to the same script with a White name. Discrimination at grade thresholds is found to be more consistent with taste-based discrimination, whereas discrimination at the average is more consistent with statistical discrimination.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 13890

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination ; Labor Discrimination ; Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search ; Field Experiments
• Subject: racial discrimination ; experiment ; marking

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Chowdhury, Shyamal ; Klauzner, Ilya ; Slonim, Robert
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/232642