Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/224764 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 678
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
Correspondence tests have been used by scholars and civil rights organizations to measure ethnic discrimination. In contrast to research testing covering a whole market through many discrimination tests, litigation testing typically targets a single agent, which can only be tested through a very low number of tests per agent. This low number of tests poses serious methodological challenges to disentangle systematic discrimination from random treatment. This study examines from a purely statistical point of view how many discrimination tests per single agent are needed to convincingly proof discrimination. We collected unique longitudinal data about 114 real estate agents, which were tested through 10 repeated pairwise matched correspondence tests. It appears that 10 or more tests are needed per realtor to detect discrimination with a high degree of certainty. The required number of tests per agent depends on the pattern of discrimination among the agent under study, the expected non-response rate and the desired degree of certainty.
Subjects: 
discrimination
discrimination tests
mid-p-value
longitudinal study
housing market
enforcement testing
JEL: 
J70
J78
R38
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.