Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282510 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 10822
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Although affirmative action remains controversial, little is known about who supports or opposes it and why. This paper investigates preferences for affirmative action by combining causal evidence from an experiment on the role of self-serving motives and in-group favoritism with survey data on three different affirmative action policies. Our results rely on a population-representative sample from the US. We find that support for affirmative action is based both on self-serving motives and principled grounds (e.g., related to an individual's altruism, fairness perceptions, concerns for efficiency, and political views). By contrast, in-group favouritism and socio-demographic characteristics play a much smaller role.
Subjects: 
support for affirmative action
self-serving motives
in-group favoritism
altruism
efficiency
fairness
discrimination
JEL: 
C99
D01
D63
J78
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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