The Political Economy of Antiracism Initiatives in the Post-Durban Round

5 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2013

See all articles by Samuel Myers

Samuel Myers

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs

LaJune Lange

Hennepin County Government Center

Bruce Corrie

Concordia College

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Date Written: 2003

Abstract

Economists understand racial discrimination to mean differential treatment of identically situated individuals of different races. While this conceptualization permits detection and measurement of racially disparate market and nonmarket outcomes (Myers, 1993), it leaves unanswered the questions of how and why such differential treatment might arise and persist. Racism, or racial prejudice, is often alluded to as the underlying causal factor. But there is no coherent theory of racism in the body of economics literature. The dominant theories (the statistical discrimination and the Beckerian taste-for-discrimination theories) for the most part do not address the causes of racial prejudice, nor how it can persist even when discrimination by race is no longer permissible. Racism in its more narrow definition, as the belief in the inherent inferiority of a racial group, is even less well understood within the corpus of the economics literature. Just as the literature offers no clear consensus on what racism is, it similarly has virtually nothing to say about the organizations that fight racism. While there remains important theoretical room for understanding the problem of racism, it is just as important to understand the solution-makers that call themselves antiracism organizations.

Keywords: Political Economy

Suggested Citation

Myers, Samuel and Lange, LaJune and Corrie, Bruce, The Political Economy of Antiracism Initiatives in the Post-Durban Round (2003). American Economic Review, Vol. 93, No. 2, 2003, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2335088

Samuel Myers (Contact Author)

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs ( email )

301 19th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States

LaJune Lange

Hennepin County Government Center

300 South 6th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55487
United States

Bruce Corrie

Concordia College

901 8th St. S.
Moorehead, MN 56562
United States

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