Human Capital and Racial Inequality in the US Labor Market / Owen Thompson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thompson, Owen.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w34251.

NBER working paper series no. w34251

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2025.

Summary:

If racial gaps in measures of human capital like educational attainment and standardized test scores were eliminated, what would happen to racial disparities in wages, employment, and other labor market outcomes? A credible answer to this question is foundational for understanding the nature and scope of racial inequality and discrimination in the United States. This article reviews and synthesizes a literature that studies this question by estimating the extent to which controlling for measures of human capital changes Black-white gaps in labor market outcomes, and discusses various conceptual and methodological issues related to interpreting this type of exercise. I show that while accurately interpreting this exercise and its many variants requires careful thinking, the results elucidate many important and subtle aspects of racial inequality in the United States.

Notes:

September 2025.

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