From taste-based to statistical discrimination

William Neilson and Shanshan Ying

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2016, vol. 129, issue C, 116-128

Abstract: Consider hiring managers who care not just about productivity but also some other, unrelated characteristic. If they treat that ascriptive characteristic differently across groups by, for example, valuing beauty more for women than men, then the hired women will be better looking but less productive, on average. This taste-based discrimination, focused entirely on an ascriptive characteristic, can lead to productivity-based statistical discrimination by the firm’s subsequent hiring managers who observe from their workforce that women tend to produce less. This identifies a new channel behind statistical discrimination that arises from the behavior of prior hiring managers.

Keywords: Discrimination; Gender; Beauty; Ascriptive characteristics; Hiring (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 J71 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:129:y:2016:i:c:p:116-128

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2016.06.001

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