Research and Publications: Department of Business Economics and Public Policy : Kelley School of Business: Indiana University

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The department is home to the authors of Managerial Economics and Business Strategy and Games and Information: An Introduction to Game Theory, two of the nation’s leading textbooks in the field.

Research and Publications

Journal Articles

Racial Bias in Expert Quality Assessment: A Study of Newspaper Movie Reviews

2012, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

Lona Fowdur, Vrinda Kadiyali, Jeff Prince

Abstract

Newspaper critics' movie reviews are often used by potential movie viewers as signals of expert quality assessment. We investigate the existence and revenue impact of racial bias in these reviews. Using an expansive, novel dataset spanning 2003-2007, we find ratings for movies with a black lead actor and all white supporting cast are approximately 6% lower than for other racial compositions. These findings appear consistent with implicit discrimination, and result in an average revenue loss of up to 4%, or $2.57 million, per movie. Robustness checks show it is unlikely these results are driven by unobserved heterogeneity or random correlations.

Citation

Fowdur, Lona, Vrinda Kadiyali and Jeff Prince (2012), “Racial Bias in Expert Quality Assessment: A Study of Newspaper Movie Reviews,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, forthcoming.