GEP Seminar: Gaia Dossi (UCL)

 Title:  Race and science

Abstract:  What are the consequences of the racial gap in science and innovation? I study this question by combining data on US patents, medical research articles, clinical trials, and research grants with the racial distribution of last names in the US population. Using last names as a proxy for race, I find that the racial composition of scientists affects the direction, as well as the rate, of medical research and innovation. First, scientists with a Black-sounding name are three times as likely to design clinical trials with Black or African American participants and twice as likely to publish articles focused on Black or African Americans. Second, scientists with a Black-sounding name are more likely to research diseases frequent among Black or African Americans, and scientists with a white-sounding name among white Americans. Third, I draw a link between race and the direction of research by focusing on diseases more common in Black (e.g., sickle cell anemia) or white (e.g., melanoma) individuals due to evolutionary advantages in their ancestors’ countries of origin. Fourth, I document the impact of relative disease incidence on the direction of research by studying an exogenous change in HIV-related mortality among Black or African Americans compared to whites. I estimate a general equilibrium Roy model with racial frictions and endogenous choice of occupation. Using the data, I quantify the parameters and estimate that removing barriers would increase the overall number of inventors by 1 p.p., a 10% increase from the baseline.

This is an in-person event

Host:  Marta Aloi