ERIC Number: ED505049
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Apr
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Does Affirmative Action Lead to Mismatch? A New Test and Evidence. NBER Working Paper No. 14885
Arcidiacono, Peter; Aucejo, Esteban M.; Fang, Hanming; Spenner, Kenneth I.
National Bureau of Economic Research
We argue that once we take into account the students' rational enrollment decisions, mismatch in the sense that the intended beneficiary of affirmative action admission policies are made worse off could occur only if selective universities possess private information about students' post-enrollment treatment effects. This necessary condition for mismatch provides the basis for a new test. We propose an empirical methodology to test for private information in such a setting. The test is implemented using data from Campus Life and Learning Project (CLL) at Duke. Evidence shows that Duke does possess private information that is a statistically significant predictor of the students' post-enrollment academic performance. We also propose strategies to evaluate more conclusively whether the evidence of Duke private information has generated mismatch.
Descriptors: Affirmative Action, Selective Admission, Universities, Academic Achievement, College Students, Confidentiality, Predictor Variables, Evaluation Methods
National Bureau of Economic Research. 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-5398. Tel: 617-588-0343; Web site: http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/get_bars.pl?bar=pub
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research
Identifiers - Location: North Carolina
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A