The Efficiency of Race-Neutral Alternatives to Race-Based Affirmative Action: Evidence from Chicago’s Exam Schools
研究了芝加哥公立学校考试高中采用的种族中立、基于地域的平权行动方案，发现其效率低于直接考虑种族的方案，约四分之三的入学分数下降本可避免，且对低收入学生的覆盖不如旧制度。
Several K-12 and university systems have adopted race-neutral affirmative action in place of race-based alternatives. This paper explores whether these plans are effective substitutes for racial quotas in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), which now employs a race-neutral, place-based affirmative action system at its selective exam high schools. The CPS plan is ineffective compared to plans that explicitly consider race: about three-quarters of the reduction in average entrance scores at the top schools could have been avoided with the same level of racial diversity. Moreover, the CPS plan is less effective at adding low-income students than was the previous system of racial quotas. We develop a theoretical framework that motivates quantifying the inefficiency of race-neutral policies based on the distortion in student preparedness they create for a given level of diversity and use it to evaluate several alternatives. The CPS plan can be improved in several ways, but no race-neutral policy restores minority representation to prior levels without substantially greater distortions, implying significant efficiency costs from prohibitions on the explicit use of race.