Police officers have a lot of discretion in how they enforce the law, but they are not always evenhanded in how they employ their judgement.

In a paper in the American Economic Review, Dartmouth College economist Steven Mello examined variations in speeding enforcement by officers with the Florida Highway Patrol..

He and coauthor Felipe Goncalves found that nearly half of the officers practiced racial discrimination and identified the types of officers who discriminated the most. The results undercut claims that racial bias is confined to a few bad apples.

Professor Mello recently spoke with the AEA's Tyler Smith about how economists study discrimination and what policies might help to address disparate outcomes for minorities.