Essays on the impacts of affirmative action

The first chapter, "Do Affirmative Action Bans Lower Minority College Enrollment and Attainment? Evidence From Statewide Bans" (forthcoming, Journal of Human Resources, Spring 2012) examines whether minority students were less likely to enroll in a four-year public college or receive a degree following a statewide affirmative action ban. Previous studies of affirmative action focus on drops in the enrollment of under-represented minorities (URMs) at top public institutions after the elimination of racial preferences. Using institutional data, I show that the effects of the bans were limited to these large drops at elite public institutions. Furthermore, students displaced from top universities were mostly absorbed by other campuses, resulting in very small drops in the number of minority students enrolling in college. Finally, I provide evidence that fewer black and Hispanic students graduated from four-year public universities after the bans. The second chapter, "Were Minority Students Discouraged From Applying to University of California Campuses After the Affirmative Action Ban?" (with Kate Antonovics), examines college applications. We show that the most highly qualified minority UC applicants were no less likely to apply to Berkeley or UCLA after Proposition 209, despite sharp drops in admissions probability. The middle 50 percent of URMs reduced their application rate to top UC campuses after Proposition 209, but also experienced large drops in admissions probability and shifted applications to less selective UCs. Given these findings, we conclude that there is little evidence of reduced minority interest in the UC system after the removal of racial preferences. In the third and final chapter, "Effort Levels of Minority High School Students Under Affirmative Action: Evidence From Bans in California and Texas"' (with Kate Antonovics and Valerie Ramey), we examine whether minority high school students spent less time investing in human capital after affirmative action bans. To evaluate these possibilities, we use both test scores and other measures of effort and find little evidence that minority students reacted to the bans by decreasing effor