Unintended Effects of Anonymous Resumes

Luc Behaghel, Bruno Crépon () and Thomas Le Barbanchon
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Bruno Crépon: CREST

No 8517, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We evaluate an experimental program in which the French public employment service anonymized resumes for firms that were hiring. Firms were free to participate or not; participating firms were then randomly assigned to receive either anonymous resumes or name-bearing ones. We find that participating firms become less likely to interview and hire minority candidates when receiving anonymous resumes. We show how these unexpected results can be explained by the self-selection of firms into the program and by the fact that anonymization prevents the attenuation of negative signals when the candidate belongs to a minority.

Keywords: anonymous applications; discrimination; randomized experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J71 J78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2014-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published in: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2015, 7 (3), 1 - 27

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Related works:
Journal Article: Unintended Effects of Anonymous Résumés (2015)
Working Paper: Unintended Effects of Anonymous (2015)
Working Paper: Unintended Effects of Anonymous Resumes (2014)
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