IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v7y2015i3p1-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unintended Effects of Anonymous Résumés

Author

Listed:
  • Luc Behaghel
  • Bruno Crépon
  • Thomas Le Barbanchon

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. (JEL J15, J68, J71)

Suggested Citation

  • Luc Behaghel & Bruno Crépon & Thomas Le Barbanchon, 2015. "Unintended Effects of Anonymous Résumés," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 1-27, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:7:y:2015:i:3:p:1-27
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.20140185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.20140185
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/ds/0703/2014-0185_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/0703/2014-0185_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/app/0703/2014-0185_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Denis Fougère & Yannick L’Horty & Pierre Morin, 2002. "Introduction," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 53(6), pages 1111-1126.
    2. Nicola Persico, 2009. "Racial Profiling? Detecting Bias Using Statistical Evidence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 229-254, May.
    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. repec:adr:anecst:y:2010:i:99-100:p:01 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    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. 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.
    4. Moshe A. Barach & John Horton, 2017. "How Do Employers Use Compensation History?: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 6559, CESifo.
    5. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    6. 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.
    7. Ballance, Joshua & Clifford, Robert & Shoag, Daniel, 2020. "“No more credit score”: Employer credit check bans and signal substitution," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    8. Ulf Rinne, 2025. "Anonymous job applications and hiring discrimination," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 483-483, January.
    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. 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.
    14. Marlene Kim, 2020. "Intersectionality and Gendered Racism in the United States: A New Theoretical Framework," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 616-625, December.
    15. Olof Åslund & Oskar Nordströum Skans, 2012. "Do Anonymous Job Application Procedures Level the Playing Field?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(1), pages 82-107, January.
    16. Keith Finlay, 2009. "Effect of Employer Access to Criminal History Data on the Labor Market Outcomes of Ex-Offenders and Non-Offenders," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 89-125, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Guy Michaels & Xiaojia Zhi, 2010. "Freedom Fries," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 256-281, July.
    18. 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).
    19. Hyland,Marie Caitriona & Islam,Asif Mohammed & Muzi,Silvia, 2020. "Firms' Discriminatory Behavior, and Women's Employment in the Democratic Republic of Congo," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9224, The World Bank.
    20. Bryson, Alex & Chevalier, Arnaud, 2015. "Is there a taste for racial discrimination amongst employers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 51-63.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    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:aea:aejapp:v:7:y:2015:i:3:p:1-27. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.