A Theory of Affirmative Action in College Admissions
研究显示，追求学术质量的大学通过偏向少数族裔的招生规则，能提高入学班级的考试成绩，并激励学生增加教育投入，从而调和多样性与学术质量之间的冲突，但非少数族裔的竞争反应可能扩大种族成绩差距。
To address the issue of when minority and nonminority candidates compete for admissions to a college, we show that an academic quality–oriented college maximizes the test score of its incoming class by adopting an admissions rule that favors the minority. Such a “handicapping” rule increases competition and induces candidates to invest more in educational attainment. These results reconcile the often‐assumed conflicts between diversity and academic quality. However, we also show that the non‐minority responds to the affirmative action admissions more aggressively, which tends to widen the racial test score gap.