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A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing / Alberto F. Alesina, Eliana La Ferrara.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Alesina, Alberto F.
- Series:
- Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w16981.
- NBER working paper series no. w16981
- Language:
- English
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.
- Summary:
- We propose a test of bias based upon patterns of judicial errors. We model the trial court as minimizing a weighted sum of type I and II errors. We define racial bias a situation where the weight depends on defendant/victim race. If the court is unbiased, the error rate should be independent of the combination defendant/victim race. We test this prediction using an original dataset on all capital appeals in 1973-1995. We find that in the first and last stage of appeal the probability of error is 3 and 9 percentage points higher for minority defendants who killed white (vs. minority) victims.
- Notes:
- Print version record
- April 2011.
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