MinE Best Paper Award

The MinE Best Paper Award is given to the best paper presented in the annual EEA congresses whose focus is on the study of LGBTQ+, Race-Ethnicity-Religion and/or Disabilities. It was inaugurated in 2022.

The Award is financed by the Hub for Equal Representation  in STICERD, London School of Economics and Political Science, and the winner is awarded €5,000.

The 2024 Award was presented to:

Statistical Discrimination and Optimal Mismatch in College Major Selection, Mary Kate Batistich, Timothy N. Bond, Sebastian Linde, Kevin J. Mumford

Motivation: The authors provide a theoretical rationale for the hitherto understudied phenomenon of black students' major choice mismatch. Within a signaling model of education choices, they show that in response to anticipated statistical discrimination in the labor market, black students choose more difficult majors than white students of similar initial academic preparation. This distortion is larger for more academically prepared students. In equilibrium, employers correctly expect black students to be less productive than white students of the same major, which results in black students earning less than their white counterparts. The authors test and confirm their theoretical predictions using rich administrative and survey data, highlighting an overlooked labor market discrimination component in student major selection. The results considerably broaden our understanding of major choices of underrepresented minority students and provide noteful insights for affirmative action policies.

Runner-up paper:
Political Rhetoric and Racial Discrimination in Arrests for Drugs, Francesco Barilari and Diego Zambiasi

2024 MinE Best Paper Award Committee — Massimo Morelli (Chair), Oriana Bandiera and Galina Zudenkova

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