This paper investigates whether differential treatment of men and women in the labor market is due to unobservable differences in productivity or if it is motivated by a taste for discrimination. While studies on sex-discrimination typically control for human capital (formal education,...

Research in psychology indicates that individuals often make inferences regarding unknown individual qualities based on potentially irrelevant (but socially observable) information. This paper explores occupational choices when individuals receive imprecise signals regarding ability and use the...

Based on a correspondence study conducted in France, we show that fictitious low-skilled applicants in the private sector are half as likely to be called back by the employers when they are of North African rather than French origin. By contrast, the origin of the fictitious applicants does not...

Despite gains in female representation in early career stages, large gender gaps persist atthe higher ends of the income distribution. This paper uses an experiment to study whetheraffirmative action, which has been used mainly in early career stages, could have a hiddencost. Specifically, by...

I present a statistical discrimination model of the labor market in which employers endogenously learn about the productivity of worker groups through their hiring. Previous hiring experiences with groups shape subsequent incentives of profit-maximizing employers to hire from these groups again...

We study a search model with employment protection legislation. We show that if the output from the match is uncertain ex ante, there may exist a discriminatory equilibrium where workers with the same productive characteristics are subject to different hiring standards. If a bad match takes...

Correspondence tests have been used by scholars and civil rights organizations to measure ethnic discrimination. In contrast to research testing covering a whole market through many discrimination tests, litigation testing typically targets a single agent, which can only be tested through a very...

Based on a correspondence study conducted in France, we show that fictitious low-skilled applicants in the private sector are half as likely to be called back by the employers when they are of North African rather than French origin. By contrast, the origin of the fictitious applicants does not...

We study a search model with employment protection legislation. We show that if the output from the match is uncertain at the hiring stage there may exist a discriminatory equilibrium where workers with the same productive characteristics are subject to different hiring standards. If a bad match...