TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rothstein,Jesse
AU  - Yoon,Albert
TI  - Mismatch in Law School
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14275
PY  - 2008
Y2  - August 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14275
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14275.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jesse Rothstein
Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley
2607 Hearst Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720-7320
Tel: 510/643-8561
Fax: 510/643-9657
E-Mail: rothstein@berkeley.edu

Albert Yoon
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
84 Queen's Park Blvd
Toronto, ON M5S 2C5
Tel: 312-503-3497
E-Mail: albert.yoon@utoronto.ca
AB  - An important criticism of race-based higher education admission preferences is that they may hurt minority students who attend more selective schools than they would in the absence of such preferences.  We categorize the non-experimental research designs available for the study of so-called "mismatch" effects and evaluate the likely biases in each.  We select two comparisons and use them to examine mismatch effects in law school.  We find no evidence of mismatch effects on any students' employment outcomes or on the graduation or bar passage rates of black students with moderate or strong entering credentials.  What evidence there is for mismatch comes from less-qualified black students who typically attend second- or third-tier schools.  Many of these students would not have been admitted to any law school without preferences, however, and the resulting sample selection prevents strong conclusions.
ER  -