The State of Minority- and Women- Owned ... - Cleveland.com

M/WBE Availability in the City of Cleveland’s Market Area
the benchmark for non-discrimination. 214 They have acknowledged that M/WBEs may be
smaller, newer, and otherwise less competitive than non-M/WBEs because of the very
discrimination sought to be remedied by race-conscious contracting programs. Racial and gender
differences in these “capacity” factors are the outcomes of discrimination and it is therefore
inappropriate as a matter of economics and statistics to use them as “control” variables in a
disparity study. 215
1. Estimate the Total Number of Business Establishments in the Market
We used data supplied by Dun & Bradstreet to determine the total number of business
establishments operating in the relevant geographic and product markets (these markets were
discussed in the previous chapter). Dun & Bradstreet produces the most comprehensive publicly
available database of business establishments in the U.S. This database contains over 20 million
records and is updated continuously. Each record in Dun & Bradstreet represents a business
establishment and includes the business name, address, telephone number, NAICS code, SIC
code, business type, DUNS Number (a unique number assigned to each establishment by Dun &
Bradstreet), and other descriptive information. Dun & Bradstreet gathers and verifies information
from many different sources. These sources include, among others, annual management
interviews, payment experiences, bank account information, filings for suits, liens, judgments
and bankruptcies, news items, the U.S. Postal Service, utility and telephone service, business
registrations, corporate charters, Uniform Commercial Code filings, and records of the Small
Business Administration and other governmental agencies.
We used the Dun & Bradstreet database to identify the total number of businesses in each
NAICS code that was identified as part of the City of Cleveland product market. Table 4.1 shows
the number of businesses identified in each NAICS Industry Group within the Construction
category, along with the associated industry weight according to dollars awarded. Table 4.2
shows the same information along with the associated industry weight according to dollars paid.
Comparable data for AE-CRS, Services, and Commodities appear in Tables 4.3 through 4.8. 216
Although numerous industries play a role in the City of Cleveland’s Baseline Business Universe,
contracting and subcontracting opportunities are not distributed evenly among them. The
distribution of contract expenditures is, in fact, highly skewed, as documented above in Chapter
III.
that it was legal opinion and not expert analysis. According to the court, “[legal analysis] is an issue solely for
the Court and not for the presentation of expert testimony….” (see Defendants-Appellees’ Brief, Gross Seed
Company v. Nebraska Department of Roads, on appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals).
214 Concrete Works of Colorado, Inc. v. City and County of Denver, 321 F.3d 950, 981, 983 (10 th Cir. 2003), cert.
denied, 124 S.Ct. 556 (2003) (emphasis in the originals) (“MWBE construction firms are generally smaller and
less experienced because of discrimination.… Additionally, we do not read Croson to require disparity studies
that measure whether construction firms are able to perform a particular contract.”).
215 Concrete Works, 321 F.3d at 981 (emphasis in the original). See also Wainwright and Holt (2010), Appendix B
“Understanding Capacity,” and Section B.5, below.
216 Analogous sets of weights, restricted to federally-assisted contracts, were also produced. They are not published
here due to space considerations.
NERA Economic Consulting 84