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The Empirical Verification Of Becker's Theory Of Discrimination: What Have We Learned?, Harlan M. Smith Ii

Harlan M. Smith

For over 30 years now empirical research on racial discrimination in the workplace has been defined by, and focused on, Becker's insight The literature is now extensive, highly technical, and to some extent fragmented-as groups of analysts have concentrated on different aspects of the problem. This paper is intended to be a "primer" on this work for the nonspecialist who wants to get up to speed on, or possibly begin contributing to, this line of research. In what follows, therefore, I highlight some of the important articles, key methodological advances, and central results that have been obtained to date. More …