Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Additional Theory and Evidence
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Dhammika Dharmapala
Knowles, Persico, and Todd (2001) develop a model of police search and offender behavior. Their model implies that if police are unprejudiced the rate of guilt should not vary across groups. Using data from Interstate 95 in Maryland, they find equal guilt rates for African-Americans and whites and conclude that the data is not consistent with racial prejudice against African-Americans. This paper generalizes the model of Knowles, Persico, and Todd by accounting for the fact that potential offenders are frequently not observed by the police, and by including two different levels of offense severity. We show that the data is consistent with prejudice against African-American males, no prejudice, and reverse discrimination, depending on the type of equilibrium that exists. Additional analyses, based on stratification by type of vehicle and time of day, do not shed any light on the nature of the equilibrium.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Contributions Article
- Contestable Licensing
- Willingness to Pay for Environmental Quality: Testable Empirical Implications of the Growth and Environment Literature
- Why Do the Poor and the Less-Educated Pay More for Long-Distance Calls?
- A Model of Welfare-Reducing Settlement
- How Does Job Loss Affect the Timing of Retirement?
- Information, the Introduction of Roths, and IRA Participation
- Willingness to Pay for Environmental Quality: Testable Empirical Implications of the Growth and Environment Literature: Comment
- Quantity Controls, License Transferability, and the Level of Investment
- Instrumental Variables for Binary Treatments with Heterogenous Treatment Effects: A Simple Exposition
- Do Parents Value Changes in Test Scores? High Stakes Testing in Texas
- Law Serials Pricing and Mergers: A Portfolio Approach
- Racial Bias in Motor Vehicle Searches: Additional Theory and Evidence
- Poverty Measurement Under Risk Aversion Using Panel Data
- Anti-trade Bias in Trade Policy and General Equilibrium
- Race and the Digital Divide
- Cost Recovery, Efficiency, and Economic Organization for Water Utilities
- A Minimum of Rivalry: Evidence from Transition Economies on the Importance of Competition for Innovation and Growth
- Selective Enforcement of Copyright as an Optimal Monopolistic Behavior
- Robin Hood's Compromise: The Economics of Moderate Land Reforms
- Pricing Coordination Failures and Health Care Provider Integration
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