PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - McHenry, Peter
AU  - McInerney, Melissa
TI  - The Importance of Cost of Living and Education in Estimates of the Conditional Wage Gap Between Black and White Women
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.49.3.695
DP  - 2014 Jul 01
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 695--722
VI  - 49
IP  - 3
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/49/3/695.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/49/3/695.full
SO  - J Hum Resour2014 Jul 01; 49
AB  - While evidence about discrimination in U.S. labor markets typically implies preferential treatment for whites, recent studies document a substantial wage premium for black women (for example, Fryer 2011). Although differential selection of black and white women into the labor market has been a suggested explanation, we demonstrate that accounting for selection does not eliminate the estimated premium. We then incorporate two additional omitted variables recently documented in the literature: (1) local cost of living and (2) years of education attained, conditional on AFQT score. After controlling for these variables, we find no evidence of a wage premium for black women.