IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0303005.html

Affirmative Action in Hierarchies

Author

Listed:
  • Suzanne Scotchmer

    (University of California, Berkeley & NBER)

Abstract

There is considerable evidence that males are more prone to take risks than females. This difference has implications for rates of promotion in hierarchies where promotion is based on random signals of ability. I explore the promotion consequences of three types of performance standards: gender-blind standards, standards designed to promote agents of equal ability on average, and standards designed to promote equal numbers of both genders. These three objectives lead to different promotion standards, which highlights among other things that the goal of affirmative action is not well defined. Lower promotion standards for females can be necessary to ensure either equal abilities or equal numbers in the promoted populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Suzanne Scotchmer, 2003. "Affirmative Action in Hierarchies," Industrial Organization 0303005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0303005
    Note: 24 pages, Acrobat .pdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/io/papers/0303/0303005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2002. "Sex Differences and Statistical Stereotyping in Attitudes Toward Financial Risk," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-03, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    2. Paul Milgrom & Sharon Oster, 1987. "Job Discrimination, Market Forces, and the Invisibility Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 453-476.
    3. Dekel, Eddie & Scotchmer, Suzanne, 1999. "On the Evolution of Attitudes towards Risk in Winner-Take-All Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 125-143, July.
    4. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2008. "Forecasting Risk Attitudes: An Experimental Study Using Actual and Forecast Gamble Choices," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-01, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    5. Ted To, 1999. "Risk and evolution," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 13(2), pages 329-343.
    6. Shelly J. Lundberg, 1991. "The Enforcement of Equal Opportunity Laws Under Imperfect Information: Affirmative Action and Alternatives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 309-326.
    7. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman & Nancy Lutz & V. Padmanbhan, 1997. "Playing it Safe: Men, Women, and Risk Aversion," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-42, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    8. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 620-630, October.
    9. David Neumark & Harry Holzer, 2000. "Assessing Affirmative Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 483-568, September.
    10. Lundberg, Shelly J & Startz, Richard, 1983. "Private Discrimination and Social Intervention in Competitive Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 340-347, June.
    11. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2008. "Sex and Risk: Experimental Evidence," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-09, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Dino Falaschetti, 2012. "A Sex Difference in Risk Taking and Promotions in Hierarchies: Evidence from Females in Legislatures," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(3), pages 477-502.

    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. ,, 2008. "Risk taking and gender in hierarchies," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(4), December.
    2. Parrotta, Pierpaolo & Smith, Nina, 2013. "Female-Led Firms: Performance and Risk Attitudes," IZA Discussion Papers 7613, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Sheryl Ball & Catherine Eckel & Maria Heracleous, 2010. "Risk aversion and physical prowess: Prediction, choice and bias," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 167-193, December.
    4. James Fain, 2016. "Screening Discrimination in a Broader Context," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 276-294, October.
    5. Burkhard Schipper, 2012. "Sex Hormones and Choice under Risk," Working Papers 127, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    6. Mohammadi, Ali & Shafi, Kourosh, 2015. "The contribution patterns of equity-crowdfunding investors: Gender, Risk aversion and Observational learning," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 419, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    7. Andersen, Steffen & Harrison, Glenn W. & Lau, Morten Igel & Rutström, E. Elisabet, 2010. "Preference heterogeneity in experiments: Comparing the field and laboratory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 209-224, February.
    8. Crosetto, P. & Filippin, A., 2017. "Safe options induce gender differences in risk attitudes," Working Papers 2017-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    9. Joshua C. Pinkston, 2006. "A Test of Screening Discrimination with Employer Learning," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 59(2), pages 267-284, January.
    10. Rezina Sultana, 2017. "Affirmative Action And Dynamics Of Work-Ethic Preferences," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1350-1369, July.
    11. David Neumark & Harry Holzer, 2000. "Assessing Affirmative Action," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 483-568, September.
    12. Ali Mohammadi & Kourosh Shafi, 2018. "Gender differences in the contribution patterns of equity-crowdfunding investors," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 275-287, February.
    13. Anwesha Bandyopadhyay & Lutfunnahar Begum & Philip J. Grossman, 2021. "Gender differences in the stability of risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 169-201, October.
    14. Guha, Brishti & Roy Chowdhury, Prabal, 2022. "Affirmative action in the presence of income heterogeneity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 510-533.
    15. Moro, Andrea & Norman, Peter, 2003. "Affirmative action in a competitive economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 567-594, March.
    16. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    17. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri, 2012. "Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Risk Taking," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 50-58.
    18. Chaudhuri, Ananish & Cruickshank, Amy & Sbai, Erwann, 2015. "Gender differences in personnel management: Some experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 20-32.
    19. Ajit Mishra, 1998. "A Theory Of Discrimination Based On Signalling And Strategic Information Acquisition," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 088, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    20. Sheryl Ball & Catherine Eckel & Maria Heracleous, 2010. "Risk aversion and physical prowess: Prediction, choice and bias," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 167-193, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

    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:wpa:wuwpio:0303005. 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: EconWPA The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask EconWPA to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.