Citation

Hernández‐Murillo R, Knowles J. Int. Econ. Rev. 2004; 45(3): 959-989.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.0020-6598.2004.00293.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

State-wide reports on police traffic stops and searches summarize very large populations, making them potentially powerful tools for identifying racial bias, particularly when statistics on search outcomes are included. But when the reported statistics conflate searches involving different levels of police discretion, standard tests for racial bias are not applicable. This article develops a model of police search decisions that allows for nondiscretionary searches and derives tests for racial bias in data that mix different search types. Our tests reject unbiased policing as an explanation of the disparate impact of motor-vehicle searches on minorities in Missouri.