Estimation of race-neutral goals in public procurement and contracting

Samuel L. Myers, Inhyuck Ha

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    3 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Federal guidelines require that public entities receiving federal transit authority (FTA) funds take affirmative steps to allocate funds to disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs). Business firms owned and operated by women and/or racial minority group members are presumptively classified as disadvantaged. To assure that the affirmative efforts to allocate contract dollars to DBEs don't discriminate against nonDBEs and white male-owned firms, the guidelines require that maximum use of race-neutral means be adopted to assure the inclusion of women and minority-owned firms in public contracting. The guidelines do not provide specific guidance on how to determine the size of the race-neutral portion of contracts awarded to DBEs. This article provides an empirically valid and easy to implement method for achieving race-neutral goals when a public agency or authority collects information on contracts with and without targeted goals.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)251-256
    Number of pages6
    JournalApplied Economics Letters
    Volume16
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Feb 3 2009

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