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A Theory of Affirmative Action in College Admissions
Author(s) -
Fu Qiang
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1093/ei/cbj020
Subject(s) - affirmative action , competition (biology) , diversity (politics) , test (biology) , quality (philosophy) , educational attainment , underrepresented minority , racial bias , demographic economics , economics , political science , racism , law , medical education , medicine , ecology , paleontology , philosophy , epistemology , biology
To address the issue of when minority and nonminority candidates compete for admissions to a college, we show that an academic quality–oriented college maximizes the test score of its incoming class by adopting an admissions rule that favors the minority. Such a “handicapping” rule increases competition and induces candidates to invest more in educational attainment. These results reconcile the often‐assumed conflicts between diversity and academic quality. However, we also show that the non‐minority responds to the affirmative action admissions more aggressively, which tends to widen the racial test score gap. (JEL H0 , J7 )