This dissertation consists of three empirical papers on racial discrimination in Brazil. The first one tests two implications of the employer s discrimination model (Becker, 1957), using 2010 Census data and the Ações Discriminatórias no Âmbito Escolar Survey (2008). Analyzing the wage differential between blacks and whites in the Brazilian labor market, the results support the model predictions, indicating that i) what determines the wage gap between a majority and a minority is not the population average discrimination, but the discrimination of the marginal employer, i.e. the employer who discriminates more among those that hire minority; and ii) given the distribution of preferences for discrimination, the higher the proportion of the minority to the majority, the greater will be the wage gap. The second paper explores trade liberalization occurred in Brazil in early 1990s to analyze the effect of increased competition on discrimination. According to Becker (1957), increased competition in the product market should reduce the wage gap between majority and minority in the labor market because it reduces the chances of obtaining a pure economic rent by employers. Using data from Census 1991 and 2000, the results indicate that there was a greater fall in the wage gap between whites and blacks in the regions associated with greater reductions in import tariffs, i.e. in markets where there was a greater increase in competition due to the trade liberalization. Furthermore, there is evidence that places with higher percentage of blacks, more prone to discrimination, and greater percentage of workers employed in concentrated industries tend to experience greater reductions in the wage gap, as predicted by theory. The third paper investigates the possibility of anticipation of discrimination by blacks, in a mechanism called self-fulfilling prophecy. Given the employers belief that the minority is less qualified on average, the phenomenon occurs when minority individuals decide to invest less in human capital because they anticipate they will not have the same opportunities and/or wages of individuals from a majority group in the labor market. If this lower investment does occur, the belief of employers is confirmed. Using data from the Saeb 2011 and Census 2010, we test the hypothesis that, in places with greater wage differential, there is less investment in education by blacks relative to whites. According to the results, there is little evidence of this phenomenon in Brazil.