Premium
Race effects on eBay
Author(s) -
Ayres Ian,
Banaji Mahzarin,
Jolls Christine
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the rand journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.687
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1756-2171
pISSN - 0741-6261
DOI - 10.1111/1756-2171.12115
Subject(s) - race (biology) , common value auction , advertising , business , economics , sociology , microeconomics , gender studies
We investigate the impact of seller race in a field experiment involving baseball card auctions on eBay. Photographs showed the cards held by either a dark‐skinned/African‐American hand or a light‐skinned/Caucasian hand. Cards held by African‐American sellers sold for approximately 20% ($0.90) less than cards held by Caucasian sellers. Our evidence of race differentials is important because the online environment is well controlled (with the absence of confounding tester effects) and because the results show that race effects can persist in a thick real‐world market such as eBay.