Unconsciousness raising: the pernicious effects of unconscious bias

Even if we could completely eliminate intentional discrimination, unconscious bias would still remain.Discrimination in employment ; Sex discrimination against women

The Relevance of Statistics to Prove Discrimination: A Typology

Substantial confusion exists among lawyers, litigants and the courts about how to identify and prove discrimination. The difficulty is primarily a result of the absence of a definition of discrimination in the federal civil rights statutes, and uncertainty as to what social policies the anti-discrimination statutes seek to accommodate. This Article provides an approach for identifying and proving discrimination through the use of statistical evidence. The Article begins by classifying discrimination cases into five basic types, based on the nature of the harm involved in each type of case. The Article then describes the potential uses of statistical evidence by each type of plaintiff and analyzes the probative value of statistical evidence in proving the various types of discrimination. The Article then concludes with the argument that statistics are of great practical value as evidence of discrimination

The Perfect Finance Minister: Whom to Appoint as Finance Minister to Balance the Budget?

The role and influence of the finance minister within the cabinet are discussed with increasing prominence in the recent theoretical literature on the political economy of budget deficits. It is generally assumed that the spending ministers can raise their reputation purely with new or more extensive expenditure programs, whereas solely the finance minister is interested to balance the budget. Using a dynamic panel model to study the development of public deficits in the German states between 1960 and 2009, we identify several personal characteristics of the finance ministers that significantly influence budgetary performance. Namely her professional background seems to affect budget deficits. During times of fiscal stress, our results can guide prime ministers in the nominating of finance ministers in order to assure sound budgeting