Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility after California’s Proposition 209
中文摘要
1998年，第209号提案禁止加利福尼亚州公立大学实施基于种族的平权行动。我采用双重差分研究设计，并使用一个新构建的纵向数据库，将1994—2002年所有加利福尼亚大学申请者与其教育经历和工资相匹配，结果表明，终止平权行动导致代表性不足少数族裔（URM）大一新生申请者逐级流向质量较低的大学。“错配假说”意味着这种流向将为URM申请者带来净教育收益，但他们的学位获得率总体上以及在STEM领域均有所下降，其中学业资质较弱的申请者降幅尤为明显。随后，URM申请者在二十多岁和三十多岁时的平均工资有所下降，这主要由西班牙裔申请者的工资下降所驱动。这些下降无法由URM学生在STEM课程序列中的表现或持续修读情况来解释，因为二者在第209号提案实施后均未发生变化。终止平权行动还使数千名符合资质的URM学生放弃申请任何一所加利福尼亚大学分校。作为补充的断点回归和院校增值分析表明，平权行动为URM申请者带来的净教育和工资收益，超过了其给处于录取边际的白人和亚裔申请者造成的净成本。
Abstract
Abstract Proposition 209 banned race-based affirmative action at California public universities in 1998. Using a difference-in-differences research design and a newly constructed longitudinal database linking all 1994–2002 University of California applicants to their educational experiences and wages, I show that ending affirmative action caused underrepresented minority (URM) freshman applicants to cascade into lower-quality colleges. The “mismatch hypothesis” implies that this cascade would provide net educational benefits to URM applicants, but their degree attainment declined overall and in STEM fields, especially among less academically qualified applicants. URM applicants’ average wages in their twenties and thirties subsequently declined, driven by declines among Hispanic applicants. These declines are not explained by URM students' performance or persistence in STEM course sequences, which were unchanged after Prop 209. Ending affirmative action also deterred thousands of qualified URM students from applying to any UC campus. Complementary regression discontinuity and institutional value-added analyses suggest that affirmative action’s net educational and wage benefits for URM applicants exceed its net costs for on-the-margin white and Asian applicants.