The heterogeneous effect of affirmative action on performance

Anat Bracha, Alma Cohen and Lynn Conell-Price

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019, vol. 158, issue C, 173-218

Abstract: This paper experimentally investigates the effect of gender-based affirmative action (AA) on performance in the lab, focusing on a tournament environment. The tournament is based on GRE math questions commonly used in graduate school admission, and at which women are known to perform worse on average than men. We find heterogeneous effect of AA on female participants: AA lowers the performance of high-ability women and increases the performance of low-ability women. Our results are consistent with two possible mechanisms—one is that AA changes incentives differentially for low- and high-ability women, and the second is that AA triggers stereotype threat.

Keywords: Affirmative action; Stereotype threat; Gender differences; GRE performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 I28 J16 J78 K19 K31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Working Paper: The Heterogeneous Effect of Affirmative Action on Performance (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:158:y:2019:i:c:p:173-218

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.11.019

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