Endophilia or Exophobia: Beyond Discrimination

Jan Feld, Nicolas Salamanca and Daniel Hamermesh

No 593, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: The discrimination literature treats outcomes as relative. But does a differential arise because agents discriminate against others—exophobia—or because they favour their own kind—endophilia? Using a field experiment that assigned graders randomly to students' exams that did/ did not contain names, we find favouritism but no discrimination by nationality, but neither by gender. We are able to identify these preferences under a wide range of behavioural scenarios regarding the graders. That endophilia dominates exophobia alters how we should measure discriminatory wage differentials and should inform the formulation of anti-discrimination policy.

Keywords: favoritism; discrimination; field experiment; wage differentials; economics of education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B40 I24 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2014-05, Revised 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-exp, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published as Feld, Jan, Nicolás Salamanca and Daniel S. Hamermesh, 'Endophilia or Exophobia: Beyond Discrimination' in The Economic Journal, 2016, pages 1503-1527.

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https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/35795 (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Endophilia or Exophobia: Beyond Discrimination (2016)
Working Paper: Endophilia or Exophobia: Beyond Discrimination (2013)
Working Paper: Endophilia or Exophobia: Beyond Discrimination (2013)
Working Paper: Endophilia or exophobia: beyond discrimination (2013)
Working Paper: Endophilia or exophobia: beyond discrimination (2013)
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