Essays on Causality, Race, and the Law

Maya Sen

Making causal inferences about race is difficult because no means exist to manipulate units into treatment and control groups. Chapter 1 addresses this predicament. First, I argue that race should be defined as a composite measure in which some elements are mutable. Second, I note that identifying the units of analysis is particularly important when thinking about race. These extensions allow us to synthesize two instances in which causal inferences regarding race may be permissible: (1) studies that measure the effect of exposing an entity to a racial cue and (2) studies that disaggregate race into constituent pieces and measure the effect of a mutable element.