Replication Data for: Can the Government Deter Discrimination? Evidence from a Randomized Intervention in New York City

Racial discrimination persists despite established anti-discrimination laws. A common government strategy to deter discrimination is to publicize the law and communicate potential penalties for violations. We study this strategy by coupling an audit experiment with a randomized intervention involving nearly 700 landlords in New York City and report the first causal estimates of the effect on rental discrimination against Blacks and Hispanics of a targeted government messaging campaign. We uncover discrimination levels higher than prior estimates indicate, especially against Hispanics, who are approximately six percentage points less likely to receive callbacks and offers than whites. We find suggestive evidence that government messaging can reduce discrimination against Hispanics, but not against Blacks. The findings confirm discrimination's persistence and suggest that government messaging can address it in some settings, but more work is needed to understand the conditions under which such appeals are most effective.

尽管已有反种族歧视相关立法，种族歧视现象依然屡禁不止。各国政府常用的反歧视威慑策略之一，是公开相关法律条文并告知违法行为将面临的处罚。本研究结合审计实验与涉及纽约市近700名房东的随机干预实验，针对定向政府信息宣传行动对黑人和拉美裔群体租房歧视的影响展开分析，并首次给出了相关因果效应估计结果。我们发现，当前的种族歧视程度高于此前研究的估计值，针对拉美裔群体的歧视尤为突出——拉美裔群体获得回访邀请与租房邀约的概率较白人群体低约6个百分点。此外，本研究的提示性证据表明，政府信息宣传或可降低针对拉美裔群体的租房歧视，但对针对黑人的歧视并无显著改善效果。本研究结果证实了种族歧视的顽固性，同时表明政府信息宣传可在部分场景下缓解歧视现象，但仍需开展更多研究以明确此类宣传举措发挥最佳效果的具体条件。