This is well said. BS’ papers are either copycat from other economists or same repeated piece (or so-callled econometrica IV crappy with inside help). AR is more original. I agree being white male really helps, as otherwise (powerful) people would just say “oh, this is not good for an Asian female, blabla)..
All these comparisons are silly. They should both make it ideally, they are above the marketing bar. But decisions in Chicago are made by a committee of high level economists. They may or may not like their work. Both have very few citations for a full prof, which may be a problem.
Economists can tell a good econ paper from a bad one. But they don’t know what to think about a Marketing Science paper. They know that BS’s identification idea is not novel, it is from another econ paper. So he will get less credit for it. He published multiple papers with the same idea and same data, which does not help. Wish he had more broad work to show. On surface AR has more original ideas and work. She should get credit for it.
Nobody would ever say that, but it's funny the way you rationalize failures by calling others racist. Sounds like some weird inferiority complex rooted in racism itself.