The Economics of Race and Stratification

An expansive collection examining stratification economics from the field’s leading scholars.

Economists have long documented persistent disparities in income, wealth, and occupational attainment across racial and other social groups. Economic models centered on individual choices and productivity differences often struggle to explain why such gaps endure. Stratification economics takes up this question by treating social groups, defined by race, ethnicity, caste, gender, or nationality, as central units of analysis and by examining how groups compete for resources and how they may pass advantage and disadvantage across generations. This volume brings together leading scholars in the field to assess its intellectual foundations and chart directions for future research. Contributors trace the field's roots in institutional economics and the Black intellectual tradition and review formal models of strategic discrimination and group identity formation.

The volume also presents empirical applications in a range of settings. Chapters analyze the occupational integration of first- and second-generation Black immigrants in the United States, evaluate the claim that racism is economically self-defeating for the groups that practice it, document the persistence of caste-based gaps in education, occupation, and income in India, and apply the framework to international inequality, including North-South disparities, global value chains, and the legacies of colonialism. Together, the contributions offer researchers and students an introduction to the core concepts of stratification economics and a foundation for new work on the origins and persistence of group-based inequality.