Volume 19, Number 4 (Fall) 1984
Green, Carole A., and Marianne A. Ferber. 1984. “Employment Discrimination: An Empirical Test of Forward Versus Reverse Regression.” Journal of Human Resources 19(4):557-569.
Using data on faculty salaries at a large university, we follow a methodology suggested by Goldberger to conduct an empirical test of the Conway-Roberts proposition that reverse and not forward regression is the proper way to detect salary discrimination. We obtained 11 different estimates of the amount of salary discrimination. Not only are these estimates statistically inconsistent, but they are also at variance with the estimate derived from the composite reverse regression. Therefore we conclude that, in light of the econometric modeling used, reverse regression does not yield an unbiased estimate of salary discrimination.
The authors are, respectively, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of South Florida, and Professor of Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The authors wish to thank Arthur Goldberger, Francine Blau, and Elizabeth Scott for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X