Please consider writing a post on audit studies conducted by sociologists that purport to show unfounded discrimination because, for example, resumes of fictional black candidates are less successful than those of fictional white candidates otherwise equivalent. (Example: https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/04/03/race-criminal-background-and-employment/) Your reasoning helps explain such findings without requiring the kin of racial discrimination we should discourage. These studies have been quite influential, both in academia and in mainstream journalism.
I think an issue is in how the findings of such studies are communicated or interpreted in various fields. Many such audit studies merely test whether group membership affects outcomes. Interpreting the results as indicative of unjust/taste-based discrimination often requires additional assumptions about risk, incentives, and priors that are rarely defended. If discrimination were primarily taste-based, adding information shouldn’t reduce disparities, so the fact that it often does is evidence that uncertainty and risk management are mostly to blame. For example, when resumes include more information on stable work history, references, credentials, verified reliability, etc, the group gaps tend to shrink.
Heckman and Siegelman showed in the 90s that even unbiased decision-makers will appear discriminatory in audit studies if groups differ in variance and selectors are risk-averse. Though the variance critique is devastating to naïve interpretations and canonical in economics, it seems like most journalists and even some sociologists are unaware of this critique.
Also, I think sticking with evidence/data and avoiding premature moral conclusions is best for any angle. It’s entirely plausible that unjust discrimination plays a decisive role in some contexts, but again, many audit studies are not designed to isolate that mechanism. Multiple causal processes can produce the differential treatment seen. Treating all such findings as evidence of unjust discrimination is analytically unsound and practically counterproductive. If one cares about reducing disparities/improving outcomes, first one must identify which mechanisms are operating.
I would guess the reason this isn’t more clear to most people is due to political/identity-based incentives to treat it as a values debate. The problem is once a field is treated as normative, even many experts also adapt to that environment and emphasize constraints less.
I'm familiar with that paper. However, the variance issue wasn't intuitive to me, nor did I follow the derivation. If you know an intuitive explanation, I'd appreciate reading it.
The landlord scenario really clarifies the assymetric cost problem. When bad decisions can wipe out gains from multiple good decisions, statistical priors stop being just abstract fairness debates and become concrete risk assesments. I've seen this play out in hiring where one terrible hire can undo months of productive work, which makes everyone way more conservative. The game theory matrix makes it obvious why people default to protecting downside even if it means missing upside.
Please consider writing a post on audit studies conducted by sociologists that purport to show unfounded discrimination because, for example, resumes of fictional black candidates are less successful than those of fictional white candidates otherwise equivalent. (Example: https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2015/04/03/race-criminal-background-and-employment/) Your reasoning helps explain such findings without requiring the kin of racial discrimination we should discourage. These studies have been quite influential, both in academia and in mainstream journalism.
I think an issue is in how the findings of such studies are communicated or interpreted in various fields. Many such audit studies merely test whether group membership affects outcomes. Interpreting the results as indicative of unjust/taste-based discrimination often requires additional assumptions about risk, incentives, and priors that are rarely defended. If discrimination were primarily taste-based, adding information shouldn’t reduce disparities, so the fact that it often does is evidence that uncertainty and risk management are mostly to blame. For example, when resumes include more information on stable work history, references, credentials, verified reliability, etc, the group gaps tend to shrink.
Heckman and Siegelman showed in the 90s that even unbiased decision-makers will appear discriminatory in audit studies if groups differ in variance and selectors are risk-averse. Though the variance critique is devastating to naïve interpretations and canonical in economics, it seems like most journalists and even some sociologists are unaware of this critique.
Also, I think sticking with evidence/data and avoiding premature moral conclusions is best for any angle. It’s entirely plausible that unjust discrimination plays a decisive role in some contexts, but again, many audit studies are not designed to isolate that mechanism. Multiple causal processes can produce the differential treatment seen. Treating all such findings as evidence of unjust discrimination is analytically unsound and practically counterproductive. If one cares about reducing disparities/improving outcomes, first one must identify which mechanisms are operating.
I would guess the reason this isn’t more clear to most people is due to political/identity-based incentives to treat it as a values debate. The problem is once a field is treated as normative, even many experts also adapt to that environment and emphasize constraints less.
I'm familiar with that paper. However, the variance issue wasn't intuitive to me, nor did I follow the derivation. If you know an intuitive explanation, I'd appreciate reading it.
The landlord scenario really clarifies the assymetric cost problem. When bad decisions can wipe out gains from multiple good decisions, statistical priors stop being just abstract fairness debates and become concrete risk assesments. I've seen this play out in hiring where one terrible hire can undo months of productive work, which makes everyone way more conservative. The game theory matrix makes it obvious why people default to protecting downside even if it means missing upside.