Measuring racial discrimination: field experiments in the streets of Paris

In addition, the French experiment represents a successful methodological advance, introducing the variation in the cost of helping in the design of the experiment. [...] Most apply to studies in which nobody is there to watch the way the experiment runs, or in which the participants of the study are aware of the hypotheses under examination, and even decide to work as confederates in the experiment because they are committed to the struggle against racism. [...] The second question is about the choice of the places for the experiment. [...] The older the pedestrians the less inclined they were to use their phone to find the street, but the effect of age was the same whatever the race of the tester. [...] George Marcus brings attention to the fact that the purpose of discrimination is not the same in the ordinary situation of asking for help studied in the experiment as it is in the labor market or the housing market, where the issues at stake are far more serious.