Partisan Discrimination in Hiring

Martin Abel, Andrea Robbett and Daniel F. Stone ()
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Daniel F. Stone: Bowdoin College

No 17540, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study experimentally investigates the role of politics in hiring decisions. Participants acted as employers, determining the highest wage to offer candidates based only on their demographic characteristics, education, and partisanship. We find that both Democratic and Republican participants significantly favor co-partisans, with an out-partisan wage penalty of 7.5%. Discrimination is consistent across tasks that focus respectively on competence, shirking, feedback responsiveness, and voluntary effort, and appears largely driven by biased beliefs about partisan productivity, while affective polarization is also predictive of the out-partisan wage penalty. Discrimination does not increase in a treatment where workers benefit financially from being hired.

Keywords: discrimination; affective polarization; inaccurate beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D90 J70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-inv and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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