When a seller's race is evident in an online classified ad for an iPod nano, black sellers receive fewer offers and less money than white sellers, says a new Stanford study.
BY LOUIS BERGERONOnline shoppers are more likely to buy from a white seller than a black one, according to a study by two Stanford researchers who posted ads on local classified advertising websites across the United States.
The ads offered the latest version of the iPod nano for sale, with each ad containing a photo of either a dark- or light-skinned hand holding the popular digital music player. The ads with a black hand received 13 percent fewer responses and 17 percent fewer offers than ads showing a white hand. Black sellers were also offered less money for the iPods than white sellers.
"We were really struck to find as much racial discrimination as we did," said Jennifer Doleac, one of the researchers and a doctoral candidate in economics. "On average it's a younger, more educated group of people shopping online and if anything they probably discriminate less than the population as a whole."
"We suspect that the negative effect of race would be even larger in the general population," she said.
Doleac and fellow researcher Luke Stein, also a doctoral candidate in economics, ran ads in more than 300 locales, ranging from small towns to major cities, during the course of a year.
The study showed that black sellers were at the greatest disadvantage in the Northeast, where they received 32 percent fewer offers than whites. In the Midwest, black sellers got 23 percent fewer offers, and they got 15 percent fewer in the South. The West was the only region where the difference in the number of offers received by black and white sellers was not statistically significant.
The amount of money offered black sellers was between 2 percent and 4 percent less than the offers white sellers received. The disparity was most pronounced when the ads were posted in locales with high crime rates or where blacks and whites were geographically isolated from each other.
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BY LOUIS BERGERONOnline shoppers are more likely to buy from a white seller than a black one, according to a study by two Stanford researchers who posted ads on local classified advertising websites across the United States.
The ads offered the latest version of the iPod nano for sale, with each ad containing a photo of either a dark- or light-skinned hand holding the popular digital music player. The ads with a black hand received 13 percent fewer responses and 17 percent fewer offers than ads showing a white hand. Black sellers were also offered less money for the iPods than white sellers.
"We were really struck to find as much racial discrimination as we did," said Jennifer Doleac, one of the researchers and a doctoral candidate in economics. "On average it's a younger, more educated group of people shopping online and if anything they probably discriminate less than the population as a whole."
"We suspect that the negative effect of race would be even larger in the general population," she said.
Doleac and fellow researcher Luke Stein, also a doctoral candidate in economics, ran ads in more than 300 locales, ranging from small towns to major cities, during the course of a year.
The study showed that black sellers were at the greatest disadvantage in the Northeast, where they received 32 percent fewer offers than whites. In the Midwest, black sellers got 23 percent fewer offers, and they got 15 percent fewer in the South. The West was the only region where the difference in the number of offers received by black and white sellers was not statistically significant.
The amount of money offered black sellers was between 2 percent and 4 percent less than the offers white sellers received. The disparity was most pronounced when the ads were posted in locales with high crime rates or where blacks and whites were geographically isolated from each other.
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| Classified ads featuring a black person’s hand holding an iPod being advertised for sale received 13 percent fewer responses and 17 percent fewer offers than ads showing the iPod held by a white hand. |
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| Buyers responding to classified ads of an iPod for sale made offers 2 percent to 4 percent lower when the iPod was shown being held by a black hand instead of a white hand. more here. |
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4 comments:
Maybe you could increase visits to the blog by changing your name to "Kiss My White Ads." Just a thought.
Damn we can't win online either....
CO! But we are winning!
HJ, you know that would go over like gang-busters.
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