Ethnic discrimination in the State: experimental evidence from Peru

What is your research about?

In this project we study ethnic discrimination by states as an organizational problem. Viewed in this light, differential treatment of some groups of citizens is a different phenomenon than "decentralized" forms of discrimination that economists have long studied. For one thing "there is only one state", so that minorities who encounter the state as citizens generally cannot "vote with their feet" and thereby discipline differential treatment. Additionally, individuals encounter the state many times during their lives so that the consequences of differential treatment at each "stage" may accumulate over their lives. Finally, unitary states are governed by centrally designed and decreed policies, opening the door to addressing discrimination – perhaps even multi-stage, accumulating discrimination – centrally too, in the design of such policies.

‍

How will the Stone Centre grant help your research?

The Stone Centre grant will support us with organising a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to test an econometrics framework we have developed which combines the two primary ways economists have used to identify favoritism: marginal outcome tests and experimental variation induced through audit study approaches.

‍

What will you produce as part of your research?

We will produce a paper reporting results and main findings. We will try to make our research accessible to a wider audience by producing a methodological brief and a case study of our collaboration with Peru's anti-corruption agency to be used in educational settings.

‍

About this grant

Title of the project: Ethnic discrimination in the State: experimental evidence from Peru

Grant value: £25,000

Duration: November 2024 – April 2026