Researching Racial Equity

J-PAL North America is catalyzing rigorous research on the drivers and mechanisms of racism and discrimination through ethical, theory-driven randomized evaluations. Through this research, we aim to identify policies and interventions that promote justice and fairness.

We advance this work by:

Supporting research through funding, research management support, and resource development
Building partnerships with organizations, associations, and researchers seeking to advance racial equity research

Motivation

Long-standing racial differences in economic and social outcomes in the United States are deeply rooted in historical injustices, discriminatory policies, and unequal access to resources and opportunities. There are many reviews of racial inequality reporting differences in labor market outcomes, geographic and economic mobility, earnings, and wealth. Racial inequities extend to other markers of well-being such as health, safety, and educational attainment. As a stark illustration, Black women who have graduated college are nearly two times as likely to die in childbirth as white women who have not graduated from high school. The persistent nature of racial inequity suggests that past and current policy approaches aiming to remedy racial disparities have not been sufficient. Policymakers need clear and credible evidence that may disrupt the stark racial inequities in the United States.

Defining Terms

Race

As is prevalent in the literature, we define race as a social construct and not as a biological fact. Race is projected onto biological and cultural traits with the purpose of achieving broader social and political goals, as evidenced by changing racial categories throughout history.¹ Race is socially constructed, but that does not mean race is not real. Members of racial groups make meaning of the categories they have been placed in; a cultural group may become racialized or people with a common experience become racialized and form a shared identity. While ethnicity is sometimes treated as a distinct concept from race, many ethnic groups share characteristics with racial groups. In the US context, there is not a clean distinction between ethnicity and race, and in academic spheres ethnic groups may be interpreted as racialized.

¹Francis, Dania V., Bradley L. Hardy, and Damon Jones. "Black economists on race and policy: Contributions to education, poverty and mobility, and public finance." Journal of Economic Literature 60, no. 2 (2022): 454-493

Racial Equity

We define racial and ethnic equity as the process of ensuring that race is no longer used to reinforce social hierarchies. Racial equity does not imply the absence of racial group identities, communities, or cultural traditions, but that such aspects are not used against individuals or groups in social, political, and legal domains. This process involves acknowledging and addressing historic harms and racial injustices, making amends, working to create racially just systems, policies, practices, attitudes, and cultural messages, and eliminating structures that reinforce differential outcomes by race.²

²Hawn Nelson, A., Jenkins, D., Zanti, S., Katz, M., Berkowitz, E., et al. (2020). A Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity Throughout Data Integration. Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy, University of Pennsylvania.

Supporting Research

Requests for Proposals

We seek to fund rigorous, ethical, and theory-driven randomized evaluations that contribute to an understanding of the drivers and mechanisms of racism, discrimination, and racial and ethnic disparities, and that explore what policies and interventions promote justice and fairness. We aim to fund research that centers racial and ethnic equity at the core of the research questions, design, and outcomes. These studies may examine how to reduce bias and discrimination, the mechanisms of discrimination and disparity, or forms and pathways of discrimination that have not previously been identified. This research will go beyond post-hoc heterogeneity analysis. It will also go beyond solely studying topics with disproportionate effects on Black, Latino/a/e, and Indigenous communities, without also studying an intervention aimed at addressing or identifying the underlying racial disparity.

From October–January, 2025, we are launching a Special Topics RFP on Racial Equity. Learn more by visiting our RFP webpage and reviewing our racial equity criteria.

We also fund research through J-PAL North America’s initiatives, including the Social Policy Research Initiative, the State and Local Innovation Initiative, and the US Health Care Delivery Initiative. All three initiatives accept proposals related to racial equity. For more details about upcoming RFPs, visit their webpages.

Racial Equity Criteria

Projects

Disentangling Sources of Bias: Evidence from Advanced Placement Course Recommendations

Location: United States of America

Reducing Racial Disparities in Bail Decisions: An Experiment on Public Accountability and Feedback in Texas

Location: Texas

Impacts of Demand-Driven Workforce Development

Location: Illinois, United States

Preferences over Outcomes or Process? Moderating Backlash to Indigenous-Language Landmark Names in the United States

Location: United States

A Randomized Trial to Identify the Effects of Provider Race on the Health Behavior of Black Men

Location: Oakland, California

Tools and Resources

In the news

Laying the foundation to diversify the economics field and center racial equity in economics research

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