Why Markets Don'T Stop Discrimination

Social Philosophy and Policy

Volumn 8, Issue 2, 1991, Pages 22-37

  Sunstein, Cass R ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84881835306     PISSN: 02650525     EISSN: 14716437     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0265052500001114     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. See, e.g., Donohue & Heckman, “Continuous Versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Affirmative Action and Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks,” forthcoming in Journal of Economic Perspectives (1989), and sources cited therein; Heckman & Paynor, “The Impact of Federal Antidiscrimination Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks: A Study of South Carolina,” American Economic Review, vol. 79 (1989), p. 138; Freeman, “Black Economic Progress After 1964: Who Has Gained And Why?”, in Studies in Labor Markets, ed. Sherwin Rosen (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981). But see Posner, “An Economic Analysis of Sex Discrimination Laws,” University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 56 (1989), p. 1311.
2. See, e.g., Dipboye, Arvey, & Terpstra, “Sex and Physical Attractiveness of Raters and Applicants as Determinants of Resume Evaluations,” Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 62 (1977), p. 288; Mischel, “Sex Bias in the Evaluation of Professional Achievements,” Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 66 (1974); p. 157; Etaugh & Kasley, “Evaluating Competence: Effects of Sex, Marital Status, and Parental Status,” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 6 (1981), p. 196. The reasons for this may range from hostility to statistical discrimination, discussed below.
3. See Fishback, “Can Competition Among Employers Reduce Governmental Discrimination?”, Journal of Lam and Economics, vol. 32 (1989), p. 311.
4. This view finds its origins in Gary Becker, The Economics of Discrimination (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1957).
5. Becker, ibid., in fact makes this point, describing the “taste” for discrimination as including fellow workers and customers as well as employers.
6. Here I follow Akerlof, “The Economics of Caste and of the Rat Race and Other Woeful Tales,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 94 (1978), p. 599.
7. See Becker on this point.
8. The point is discussed in Akerlof, “Discriminatory, Status-Based Wages Among Tradition-Oriented, Stochastically Trading Coconut Producers,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 93 (1985), p. 265.
9. See Phelps, “The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism,” American Economic Review, vol. 62 (1972), p. 659; in law, see Strauss, “The Myth of Colorblindness,” 1986 The Supreme Court Review, eds. Kurland, Casper, and Hutchinson (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1986), p. 99.
10. Compare George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987).
11. See Elliot Aronson, The Social Animal (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1987).
12. The points made in this paragraph can be found in Strauss, “The Myth of Colorblindness.”
13. Arrow, “Models of Job Discrimination,” in Racial Discrimination in Economic Life, ed. Anthony H. Pascal (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1972); Lundberg & Startz, “Private Discrimination and Social Intervention in Competitive Labor Markets,” American Economic Review, vol. 73 (1983), p. 340
14. But compare Donohue, “Is Title VII Efficient?”, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 134 (1986), p. 1411, who appears to be relying on a conception of “efficiency” not based on this criterion but instead based on a notion of social output or production. The same criterion can be found in Schwab, “Is Statistical Discrimination Efficient?”, American Economic Review, vol. 76 (1980), p. 228.
15. But see Schwab, “Is Statistical Discrimination Efficient?”; Donohue, “Is Title VII Efficient?”
16. See Lundberg & Startz, “Private Discrimination and Social Intervention in Competitive Labor Markets.”
17. See Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Evanston: Row, Peterson, 1957); in the particular context, see the notation in Arrow, “Models of Job Discrimination,” at 26. In general, see Jon Elster, Sour Grapes (1983).
18. See Jon Elster, Sour Grapes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
19. See Elster, Sour Grapes; Melvin J. Lemer, The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion (New York: Plenum Press, 1980).
20. See, e.g., Aronson, The Social Animal (1988); Carli, Janoff-Bulman, and Timko, “Cognitive Biases in Blaming the Victim,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 21 (1985), p. 161; Gunter & Fumham, “Just World Beliefs and Attitudes Towards the Poor,” British Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 23 (1984), p. 265.
21. If it is to be made plausible, this is not a conspiracy theory. There has been no self-conscious decision by whites or men to do something of this sort. The phenomenon is instead a consequence of a collection of small decisions without global or world-transforming aspirations-in short, of a market.
22. See Strauss, “Discriminatory Intent and the Taming of Brown,” University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 56 (1989), p. 936.
23. See Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).
24. See Strauss “Discriminatory Intent.”
25. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 102; MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified
26. Compare Strauss, “Discriminatory Intent,” “The Myth of Colorblindness.”