Discrimination with inaccurate beliefs and confirmation bias

Christian Ruzzier and Marcelo D. Woo

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023, vol. 210, issue C, 379-390

Abstract: We examine patterns of discrimination when employers hold incorrect beliefs about the relationship between group membership and productivity, and suffer from confirmation bias when updating their beliefs. As a result, employers do not correct them fully, leading to persistent wage discrimination. Negative stereotypes generate discrimination against minority workers upon entry to the labor market, but are not enough to have discrimination in the long run, and reversals in discrimination are possible. We also discuss whether interventions aimed at reducing discrimination would succeed if confirmation bias is an important source of discrimination, and consider segregation in an extension with heterogeneous employers.

JEL-codes: D90 D91 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268123001221
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Discrimination with Inaccurate Beliefs and Confirmation Bias (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:210:y:2023:i:c:p:379-390

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.04.018

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().