Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/232642 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13890
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study whether racial or gender discrimination in marking exists at universities by conducting an experiment at a major Australian university where we randomly assigned names indicative of White, Chinese or Adopter identities (comprised of a White first name and Chinese surname) and male or female gender to real exam coversheets and recruited university graders to mark these exams. We find that the most economically-significant evidence of discrimination is found at grade thresholds. Exam scripts with Chinese and Adopter names are less likely than White names to receive a mark just above a grade threshold. Conversely, scripts with Chinese names receive a small marking bonus on average compared to the same script with a White name. Discrimination at grade thresholds is found to be more consistent with taste-based discrimination, whereas discrimination at the average is more consistent with statistical discrimination.
Subjects: 
racial discrimination
experiment
marking
JEL: 
J15
J71
J64
C93
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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