Ban the Box: The Effects of Criminal Background Information on Labor Market Outcomes

This paper seeks to investigate the e↵ects of Ban-the-Box laws across the United States. Ban-the-Box laws make it illegal to ask whether an applicant has been convicted of a crime on a job application. The e↵ects are consistent with that of statistical discrimination where the policy is having adverse e↵ects on individuals labor market outcomes. I find that without perfect information about an individual’s criminal history, firms base their perceived productivity of a potential applicant on an expected relationship between race and criminality. This results in negative e↵ects on labor market outcomes for all individuals, especially for black males, who are particularly vulnerable.