Research

How does the majority population view the societal contributions, economic outcomes and opportunities available to specific ethnic minority groups, root causes of ethnic disadvantage, and policy solutions to address them? We answer these questions in the UK context, a multiethnic society where some minorities outperform the majority in economic outcomes, while others underperform. We use an online survey fielded to 3200 White British individuals, into which we embed a survey experiment that presents respondents with narratives about the economic success or disadvantage of specific minority groups. The experiment was purposefully implemented in the run up to the 2024 UK General Election, that saw the rise of populist anti-immigration parties. We find that even in such charged times, light-touch narratives can correct majority misperceptions of the economic outcomes of specific minorities, and shift views on policies to address ethnic inequalities. Views on the opportunities available to minorities and root causes of disadvantage, such as luck or effort, are harder to shift irrespective of the minority outgroup. By considering perceptions towards their ingroup, we document that narratives about the economic success of minorities can shift majority perceptions in ways consistent with zero sum thinking. Given strong political di¤erences in perceptions of minorities, we examine heterogeneous responses to the narratives by political leaning. Narrative treatments can shift perceptions, including those of right-leaning individuals, with zero sum mindsets being independent of political leaning. We conclude by examining how perceptions across domains shape the reasoning behind support for policies targeted to speci…c minorities to address ethnic inequalities. JEL: D8, H1, J15.

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Citation: Platt, Lucinda, Imran Rasul and Pratyush Tiwari (2025). Majority Perceptions of Minority Groups: Economic Inequalities, Their Causes, and Policy Solutions. CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20106.

This paper estimates housing choice differences between households with and without remote workers. Prior to the pandemic, the expenditure share on housing was more than seven percent higher for remote households compared to similar non-remote households in the same commuting zone. Remote households’ higher housing expenditures arise from larger dwellings (more rooms) and a higher price per room. Pre-COVID, households with remote workers were actually located in areas with above-average housing costs, and sorting within-commuting zone to suburban or rural areas was not economically meaningful. Using the pre-COVID distribution of locations, we estimate how much additional pre-tax income would be necessary to compensate non-remote households for extra housing expenses arising from remote work in the absence of geographic mobility, and we compare this compensation to commercial office rents in major metro areas.

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Citation: Stanton, Christopher T., and Pratyush Tiwari (2021). Housing consumption and the Cost of Remote Work. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series No. w28483