The Boss is Watching: How Monitoring Decisions Hurt Black Workers

Costas Cavounidis, Kevin Lang and Russell Weinstein

No 26319, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: African Americans face shorter employment durations than apparently similar whites. We hypothesize that employers discriminate in either acquiring or acting on ability-relevant information. We construct a model in which firms may "monitor" workers. Monitoring black but not white workers is self-sustaining: new black hires are more likely to have been screened by a previous employer, causing firms to discriminate in monitoring. We confirm the model's prediction that the unemployment hazard is initially higher for blacks but converges to that for whites. Two additional predictions, lower lifetime incomes and longer unemployment durations for blacks, are known to be strongly empirically supported.

JEL-codes: J01 J3 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ure
Note: LS
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Costas Cavounidis & Kevin Lang & Russell Weinstein, 2024. "The Boss is Watching: How Monitoring Decisions Hurt Black Workers," The Economic Journal, vol 134(658), pages 485-514.

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Journal Article: The Boss is Watching: How Monitoring Decisions Hurt Black Workers (2024)
Working Paper: The Boss is Watching: How Monitoring Decisions Hurt Black Workers (2022)
Working Paper: The Boss is Watching: How Monitoring Decisions Hurt Black Workers (2022)
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