IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-01203070.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unintended Effects of Anonymous

Author

Listed:
  • Luc Behaghel

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Bruno Crépon

    (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Thomas Le Barbanchon

    (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

We evaluate an experimental program in which the French public employment service anonymized résumés for firms that were hiring. Firms were free to participate or not; participating firms were then randomly assigned to receive either anonymous résumés or name-bearing ones. We find that participating firms become less likely to interview and hire minority candidates when receiving anonymous résumés. We show how these unexpected results can be explained by the self-selection of firms into the program and by the fact that anonymization prevents the attenuation of negative signals when the candidate belongs to a minority.

Suggested Citation

  • Luc Behaghel & Bruno Crépon & Thomas Le Barbanchon, 2015. "Unintended Effects of Anonymous," Post-Print halshs-01203070, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01203070
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20140185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Persico, 2009. "Racial Profiling? Detecting Bias Using Statistical Evidence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 229-254, May.
    2. repec:adr:anecst:y:2010:i:99-100:p:01 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    4. Cecilia Rouse & Claudia Goldin, 2000. "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 715-741, September.
    5. Krause, Annabelle & Rinne, Ulf & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2012. "Anonymous job applications of fresh Ph.D. economists," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 441-444.
    6. Denis Fougère & Yannick L’Horty & Pierre Morin, 2002. "Introduction," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 53(6), pages 1111-1126.
    7. David H. Autor & David Scarborough, 2008. "Does Job Testing Harm Minority Workers? Evidence from Retail Establishments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 219-277.
    8. Kroft, Kory & Lange, Fabian & Notowidigdo, Matthew J., 2012. "Duration Dependence and Labor Market Conditions: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2012-21, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 28 Sep 2012.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Yiu Por (Vincent) & Zhang, Yuan, 2018. "A decomposition method on employment and wage discrimination and its application in urban China (2002–2013)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 1-12.
    2. Ulf Rinne, 2018. "Anonymous job applications and hiring discrimination," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-11, October.
    3. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    4. Gautam Rao, 2019. "Familiarity Does Not Breed Contempt: Generosity, Discrimination, and Diversity in Delhi Schools," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 774-809, March.
    5. Robert Clifford & Daniel Shoag, 2016. "“No more credit score”: employer credit check bans and signal substitution," Working Papers 16-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    6. Lee, Logan M. & Waddell, Glen R., 2021. "Diversity and the timing of preference in hiring decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 432-459.
    7. Moshe A. Barach & John Horton, 2017. "How Do Employers Use Compensation History?: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 6559, CESifo.
    8. Ballance, Joshua & Clifford, Robert & Shoag, Daniel, 2020. "“No more credit score”: Employer credit check bans and signal substitution," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Ohto Kanninen & Sanni Kiviholma & Tuomo Virkola, "undated". "Anatomy of An Anonymous Hiring Pilot," Working Papers 338, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    10. Joanna N. Lahey & Douglas R. Oxley, 2021. "Discrimination at the Intersection of Age, Race, and Gender: Evidence from an Eye‐Tracking Experiment," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(4), pages 1083-1119, September.
    11. Annabelle Krause & Ulf Rinne & Klaus Zimmermann, 2012. "Anonymous job applications in Europe," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Krause, Annabelle & Rinne, Ulf & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2012. "Anonymous job applications of fresh Ph.D. economists," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 441-444.
    13. Saugato Datta & Vikram Pathania, 2016. "For whom does the phone (not) ring? Discrimination in the rental housing market in Delhi, India," WIDER Working Paper Series 055, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Bryson, Alex & Chevalier, Arnaud, 2015. "Is there a taste for racial discrimination amongst employers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 51-63.
    15. John M. Nunley & Adam Pugh & Nicholas Romero & Richard Alan Seals, Jr., 2014. "Unemployment, Underemployment, and Employment Opportunities: Results from a Correspondence Audit of the Labor Market for College Graduates," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2014-04, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    16. Meurs, Dominique & Puhani, Patrick A., 2024. "Culture as a Hiring Criterion: Systemic Discrimination in a Procedurally Fair Hiring Process," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Morten Størling Hedegaard & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "The Price of Prejudice," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 40-63, January.
    18. Nicole M Lindner & Alexander Graser & Brian A Nosek, 2014. "Age-Based Hiring Discrimination as a Function of Equity Norms and Self-Perceived Objectivity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-6, January.
    19. Hinnerich, Björn Tyrefors & Höglin, Erik & Johannesson, Magnus, 2011. "Ethnic Discrimination in High School Grading: Evidence from a Field Experiment," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 733, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 27 Jun 2011.
    20. Diana Moreira & Santiago Pérez, 2022. "Who Benefits from Meritocracy?," NBER Working Papers 30113, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Non-labor Discrimination;

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01203070. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.