Russet apples and the Sam-I-Am theory of affirmative action

For years, I've been avoiding buying russet apples.  They have such unattractive tawny brown skins. Not like the smooth, pink-cheeked Royal Galas and MacIntoshes. 

Until this fall. "What kind of apples would you like?", I asked my out-of-town visitors. "Well, russets are the best, of course, but I doubt you'll be able to get them. It's almost the end of the season." 

Given a challenge like that, I had to - and did - procure the last of the local russets.

It's true. They are the best apples - not too sweet, just the right texture, with an intense appley flavour.

This is the logic behind what I call the Sam-I-am theory of affirmative action. In Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham, Sam-I-am urges the protagonist to try this strange food:

You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.

[Spoiler alert] The hero eventually tries green eggs and ham and, yes, he does like them.

One view of affirmative action is that if employers can just get the past the colour of a potential employee's skin, and give that person an opportunity, they will discover their prejudices were mistaken. They will learn, and next time not judge people on their skin colour. Affirmative action will improve the welfare of disadvantaged groups, by expanding their job opportunities. It is good for employers, too, as it allows them to discover and tap new pools of talent. Moreover, affirmative action can be temporary: as employers learn, and tastes change, discrimination will end.

The russet apple example illustrates one condition necessary for affirmative action to work this way.

Research in behavioural economics suggests that our experiences and perceptions can be manipulated. For example, people will honestly believe that a wine tastes better if they are told that it is expensive (e.g. here) Did I enjoy my russet apples because russets are objectively delicious, or because I was told that they were hard to obtain and special by someone whose taste I respect? Almost certainly the later played a role.

The policy conclusion: affirmative action will be more effective if it has high level, highly respected advocates. Here I risk being overly speculative, but it may be possible that, if employers feel that they are being forced to hire a certain person, they may perceive that employee as inferior, even if in fact that person is perfectly capable?

The russet apple example illustrates a second point: something can be shut out of the market place as much by suppliers' beliefs about consumers' preferences, as by those actual preferences. I have now seen the light, and realize that russet apples are delicious. But how can I convey my demand to suppliers? If they believe that russet apples will not sell, so do not bring any to market, I will never have an opportunity to reveal my preferences.

An well-trained economist would respond: in any kind of remotely competitive market, if an opportunity for profit exists, someone will exploit it. If there are no russet apples on offer it's because no one is willing to pay the  costs of their production. To which I say: Have you checked out the extent of concentration and vertical integration in the Canadian grocery industry lately? Also: apple trees take time to grow. It is risky to sink a large amount of capital into any fruit with a fluctuating, uncertain demand.

But I have learned one thing at least this year: not to discriminate against apples just because I don't like the colour of their skin.

Comments

[Nick Rowe]

Russets definitely are the best. I remember eating them as a child in England, and liking them despite their looks. They are usually available in West Quebec stores.

If russets were a brand name, the monopolist would have an incentive to offer free samples, to get people to try them. But there is little incentive for competitive firms producing russet apples to do the same. There's a collective action problem.

[Frances Woolley]

Nick, yes, because one russet apple grower couldn't stop other growers from harvesting the benefits of her marketing activities.

Don't tell Stephen Gordon, but I think what we need here is a russet apple marketing board.

[Min]

On overcoming prejudice, the following link may be of interest. :)

http://guardianlv.com/2013/11/kkk-member-walks-up-to-black-musician-in-bar-but-its-not-a-joke-and-what-happens-next-will-astound-you/

[cg]

In fact: there is both a very large market for russets - and production. A Canadian russet lover has to go to France, where every supermarket - almost all year round - has mounds of "reinettes du Canada" - our lowly Russets, all exported and unavailable to us here.

[Frances Woolley]

cg - that is absolutely fascinating! It would also explain why Nick can find them in West Quebec, and I was able to surprise my out-of-town guests by finding them without difficulty in Ottawa.

There is this basic result in trade theory that says that, all else being equal, the most expensive goods get exported, because those are the ones that make most sense to ship. I wonder if russets are an example of that.

[Frances Woolley]

Min - thanks for the link. In a sense that story both confirms and denies the Sam-I-am theory of affirmative action. It confirms it in that it suggests that personal knowledge and experience can indeed change a person's beliefs. But also note that Daryl Davis, the black man featured in the article, was what we call here in Ottawa a diplo-brat. He grew up without living with the kind of everyday racism experienced by black Americans, the kind of grinding oppression described here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512374/Florida-police-stop-man-258-times-TRESPASSING-place-work.html. It's not clear that simply being given a break, one chance to prove one's worth, is enough to allow someone to overcome that kind of disadvantage.

[Determinant]

I love Russets, but I have only seen them in an Ontario supermarket once. They are known as "leathercoats" for a reason.

OTOH Pink Ladies, Honeycrisps, Galas and Empires are just fine too.

Apple tastes do change. The market for Red Delicious has plummeted as the apple's quality sank and other varieties with as much sweetness but more character (hello Empire and Honeycrisp) have taken off. The McIntosh is a mainstay but it is not as dominant as it once was. However the McIntosh and the Golden Delicious are the mother and father to the majority of modern apple varieties. Most modern varieties have one or the other in their line.

[ignoramus]

A thought I've had on affirmative action is that generally the maligned group (women, blacks, etc.) have to be much more capable to be considered (as anecdote see http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/31/funny-how-gender-never-came-up-during-bernankes-nomination-or-greenspans-or-volckers/ ) in other words, they are often maligned in favour of weaker candidates. Thus, requiring a certain percentage belong to a group is likely to raise the overall quality.

[Jacques René Giguère]

Though most of the cost is borne by the discriminated, there is a price to be paid by the discriminant. In the U.S South and South Africa, GDP was lower than it would have been. But keeping the blacks down was seemed to be worth it. Like in a nasty divorce, schadenfreude is a powerful emotion.The suffering of the other part is worth more than your own and may be part of your enjooyment... So we have to be rationnal in their stead...

[Frances Woolley]

Ignoramus - this is the idea behind one common test for the existence of discrimination: take an activity for which productivity is measurable, e.g. # of points scored by a hockey player, and see if players that are members of a discriminated group score more points. If this is the case, it suggests that these players have to be better to get ahead. Another kind of test is to see if teams that have less discriminatory recruiting practices have better outcomes.

In the NHL there is some evidence that French Canadian players experience discrimination - see, e.g. this paper, which finds that teams with an unusually low proportion of French Canadian players do poorly: http://www.cbe.csueastbay.edu/~lkahane/6-4550/6_4550_read/Kahane_RIO_%202005.pdf. Of course this paper also finds that discrimination in favour of French Canadians is also costly - teams with an unusually high proportion of French Canadians also seem to have less good records. I'd be a bit suspicious of that later result, though, it might be quite sensitive to the performance of the Canadiens.

[Jacques René Giguère]

Frances: fun thing is whenever the subject is raised (beginning with the works of Marc Lavoie at U. of Otttawa from his own experience in fencing)CBC and G&M derides that...

[Greg Ransom]

Wikipedia says the russeting is a fearure of the skin of an apple of many varieties and is not a variety of apple.

Is that true?

[Frances Woolley]

Greg - it sounds plausible to me. Wikipedia also suggested that russetting makes apples more vulnerable to infection/pests/bad things which is why it's not considered a desirable feature in new cultivars. Perhaps in other countries there are multiple varieties of russet apples, and the russets are called by their proper names, but here I've only seen apples labelled as "russet apples".

[Davis X. Machina]

Only a few hundred miles away, and in pretty good apple country -- Maine -- and I've never heard of a russet apple. The internet tells me that some of the heirloom places have them.

http://maineapple.com/apples/golden-russet/

[Jim Sentance]

I get around the supply problem by growing my own. The specific variety I have is called Golden Russet. In my experience they're actually a tiny bit less likely to be invaded by pests than my other apples. An additional attraction is that they are highly thought of as cider apples.

On the being more productive thing, of course there's Charlotte Whitten's old line to the effect that women need to be twice as good as men - but that fortunately that's not too difficult,

[Frances Woolley]

Jim - what do you do with them? Do you make your own cider? I'm feeling a visit to PEI should be on the agenda....

[Jim Sentance]

This year we made cider (though not the hard stuff - maybe next year). Amazing flavour from a mix of four or five types.

[Randy]

The Berenstain Bears partially covered this a long time ago :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Berenstain_Bears_books#The_Berenstain_Bears_Learn_About_Strangers

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