This dissertation is comprised of three studies which examine, among other issues, racial economic disparity. The first study examines racial and gender wage gaps and considers preferences among supervisors and workers as possible sources of wage differentials. After controlling for various wage determinants, I find little statistical evidence of a racial wage gap. However, I do find evidence of a significant gender wage gap. Also, the race of an individual‟s supervisor is found to be unimportant, but workers with male supervisors are found to earn significantly higher wages than workers with female supervisors. The results reveal little evidence of employee discrimination. However, it is found that both white and male workers receive a wage premium when working for a white male supervisor. I find these results to be strongest for, and possibly driven by, small firms in the South. The second study examines the factors that Bowl Championship Series (BCS) universities use in their decision to offer athletic scholarships to high school football players. I find that a player‟s physical characteristics are important in determining the number of scholarship offers he will receive as well as his athletic performance in high school. However, a player‟s high school grade point average is not a significant determinant of the number of scholarship offers he receives. The analysis also indicates a significantly higher labor market demand for African-American high school football players, and there is also evidence of racial position segregation as well. The third study analyzes the relationship between the racial makeup of counties and economic growth and convergence in the southern U.S. The results provide strong evidence that spatial dependence is present in the data, and it is determined that the spatial lag model is appropriate for modeling the data. Significant evidence of conditional beta-convergence among the counties in the sample is found. The results also reveal that the balanced growth paths of counties are inversely related with the percentage of the county population that is African-American. That is, counties with a higher concentration of African-Americans tend to exhibit relatively slow rates of income growth.

Le 1er chapitre examine le rôle de la culture d’origine sur la manière dont les jeunes hommes et femmes diffèrent dans leurs choix de retarder le départ du foyer parental. Je montre que dans les cultures caractérisées par des valeurs traditionnelles portant sur les rôles de genre, les jeunes hommes ont plus d’incitations que les jeunes femmes à rester chez leurs parents. Lorsque les femmes de ces cultures vont vivre dans une société plus libérale par rapport aux rôles de genre, elles quittent plus vite le foyer parental et cherchent à trouver un mari d’une culture différente de la leur. Dans le 2e chapitre, nous montrons, à partir d’un testing sur CV, que les jeunes peu qualifiés sont moins rappelés par les employeurs du secteur privé lorsqu’ils sont Maghrébins plutôt que Français. L’origine des candidats n’a pourtant pas d’effet sur le taux de rappel dans le secteur public, même si les recruteurs des deux secteurs ont des préférences discriminatoires similaires. Notre modèle montre que l'absence de discrimination à l’invitation pour un entretien dans le secteur public est compatible, dans ce contexte, avec une discrimination plus forte à l'embauche. Le 3e chapitre s’appuie aussi sur un testing sur CV pour étudier les effets de l’expérience professionnelle des jeunes décrocheurs du secondaire quatre ans après avoir quitté les études. À défaut de formation certifiante, le taux de rappel n’est pas plus élevé pour ceux ayant eu une expérience professionnelle, subventionnée ou non, dans le secteur marchand ou non-marchand par rapport à ceux restés au chômage. De plus, une formation certifiante améliore les taux de rappel uniquement lorsque le taux de chômage local est faible. / The first chapter examines the role of individuals’ culture of origin in explaining the gender gap in youth’s decision to delay moving out from the parental household. I show that in societies with traditional values about gender roles, young have more incentives than young women to live longer with their parents. When women from these cultures live in a more liberal society regarding gender roles, they move out faster from the parental household and also seek to find a husband from a different culture than their own. In the 2nd chapter, we show, based on a correspondence study that low-skilled youth are less likely to be called back by private sector employers when they are North-African rather than French. By contrast, the origin of the fictitious applicants does not impact their callback rate in the public sector, despite the similar negative discriminatory beliefs of recruiters in both sectors. Our model shows that the absence of discrimination at the invitation for an interview stage in the public sector is compatible, in this context, with stronger discrimination in hiring. The third chapter is also based on a correspondence study and investigates the effects of the labor market experience of high school dropouts four years after leaving school. Compared to those who have stayed unemployed since leaving school, the callback rate is not raised for those with employment experience, whether it is subsidized or non-subsidized, in the market or non-market sector, if there is no training accompanied by skill certification. Moreover, training accompanied by skill certification improves callback rates only when the local unemployment rate is low.