How Costly Is Affirmative Action? Government Contracting and California's Proposition 209
利用加州209号提案禁止州政府合同考虑种族或性别，发现州政府资助合同价格下降5.6%，主要源于分包商组合变化，高少数族裔地区企业成本更高。
This paper investigates the effect of disadvantaged business enterprise subcontractor goals on the winning bids for highway construction contracts using California's Proposition 209, which prohibited the consideration of race or gender in awarding state-funded contracts. After Proposition 209, prices on state-funded contracts fell by 5.6% relative to federally funded projects, for which preferences still applied. Most of the price decline after Proposition 209 resulted from the mix of subcontractors employed, which seems to arise from the higher costs of firms located in high-minority areas. Finally, short-run barriers to entry and expansion may increase the cost of affirmative action. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.