Names will never hurt me: Racially distinct names and identity in the undergraduate classroom

Abstract

Recent researchers (Fryer Jr., R.G., Levitt, S.D., 2004. The causes and consequences of distinctly black names. Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (3); Figlio, D.N., 2003. Names, expectations, and black children’s achievement. Working Paper; Bertrand, M., Mullainathan, S., 2004. Are Emily and George more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American Economic Review 94 (4); Hess, G., Aura, S., 2004. What’s in a name? Working Paper) have shown that people with racially identifiable names tend to have worse economic outcomes, and have tried to explain why. This paper extends this recent literature by deepening the psychological underpinnings of possible answers to this question in the context of undergraduate grades. Using a rich student-level administrative data set, I explore the effects on performance of both first and last name racial identifiability. I test for the presence of effects from either black or Asian names due to differential teacher expectations (Figlio, 2003), conventional teacher discrimination (Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004), or differences in unobserved ability or racial identity that are correlated with name type and directly affect performance (Fryer and Levitt, 2004; Hess and Aura, 2004). A conceptual and empirical distinction is drawn in the paper between unobserved ability effects and racial identity effects. Name type is found to have little direct influence on performance via any channel. Mild evidence suggests that racial identity may be salient in predicting undergraduate grades. The paper contributes to the literatures in social effects, discrimination, and the burgeoning subfield of economics and identity.