The Economics of Implicit Bias: Theory and Evidence (Working Paper)
I develop a theory of the origins and consequences of implicit bias in a segregated society. In the model, boundedly-rational individuals may follow impulses to discriminate when deliberation is costly. Hence, implicit discrimination is distinct from taste-based or statistical discrimination and only found when individuals cannot perfectly optimize. Segregation can amplify the underlying biases if it shifts individuals' observations toward negatively-skewed secondhand sources. Using Implicit Association Test data, I find evidence consistent with residential racial segregation increasing anti-Black implicit bias. Additionally, I show that cognitive effort mitigates this effect, whereas exposure to distorted media images of Black Americans increases bias.
Stereotypes and Strategic Discrimination (Working Paper)
Stereotypes arise when individuals interact. Even when group differences are intrinsically meaningless and there is no inherent animosity between groups, parents teach children that visible differences mark differences in ability to influence their behaviour in strategic interactions. Children discriminate based on these beliefs, benefiting their group at the expense of the stereotyped, which I label `strategic discrimination.' In competitive environments, negative stereotypes cause crowding out of the stereotyped group, whereas in cooperative environments, positive stereotypes yield free riding. In equilibrium, maintaining their prejudices is best response for the holders of stereotypes and partial acceptance is best response for the stereotypes' targets, even though strategic discrimination is costly to aggregate welfare. When groups can misperceive others' stereotypes, the holders of these beliefs incorrectly think they are commonly held, but in truth, the stereotyped group rejects their accuracy.
Legitimizing Myths (Working Paper)
Differing beliefs about the causes of inequality need not represent differences in facts or evidence, but differences in ideology. When people care about fair allocations, narratives that claim some are less deserving legitimizes the inequality, reducing demand for a policy response, even among those who would benefit from redistribution. Conflict persists in equilibrium as dissenters hold beliefs contrary to the dominant ideology and mobilize for what they believe is just. I connect disparate ideological beliefs to an underlying desire for perceived fairness, across income inequality, judicial punitiveness, and the allocation of public goods. Finally, I demonstrate that policy persistence and ideological constraint arise as special cases of narrative credibility constraints.
Exploitation Through Racialization (Link) - Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 140(2), May 2025. pp. 1581-1631.
I develop a model of the social construction of race. Racial categories emerge from labor conflict when elites privilege intrinsically irrelevant traits to divide workers against each other and extract workers' surplus. I show that elites use color to grant unequal rights and track these rights across generations because it is heritable, observable, and relatively immutable. Depending on the demographic conditions the elites face, the system of racialization manifests either as ancestry-based or color-based categories. This approach to the social construction of race provides a unified explanation of skin-tone inequality, racial homophily in marriage, the social status of mixed-race people, the psychological wage of Jim Crow, and legal restrictions on manumission. I test for historical variations in racial boundaries using census data from the United States and Brazil and for differential patterns of skin-tone inequality between ancestry-based and color-based systems using survey data from across the Americas.
Democratic Racialization with Heather Sarsons
Gendered Task Assignment