The Price of Prejudice

Morten Størling Hedegaard and Jean-Robert Tyran

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2018, vol. 10, issue 1, 40-63

Abstract: We present a new type of field experiment to investigate ethnic prejudice in the workplace. Our design allows us to study how potential discriminators respond to changes in the cost of discrimination. We find that ethnic discrimination is common but highly responsive to the "price of prejudice," i.e., to the opportunity cost of choosing a less productive worker on ethnic grounds. Discriminators are on average willing to forego 8 percent of their earnings to avoid a coworker of the other ethnic type. The evidence suggests that animus rather than statistical discrimination explains observed behavior.

JEL-codes: C93 J15 J24 J31 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.20150241
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Price of Prejudice (2014)
Working Paper: The Price of Prejudice (2014)
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