IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-08j70001.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An alternative to statistical discrimination theory

Author

Listed:
  • Ariane Szafarz

    (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Solvay Business School, Centre Emile Bernheim)

Abstract

This paper offers a new representation of discrimination on the job market based on the most recent findings in the socio-psychological academic literature about human behaviour. Put it simply, it is assumed that the agents prefer working with people like themselves. This "affinity" principle is modelled through a distance between an individual (the candidate for a job) and the staff of the firm. Contrary to the classical view according to which discrimination results from asymmetric information, this new model provides a rationale for the presence of discriminative attitudes on the job market even when full information is available on the skill levels of all candidates for a working position.

Suggested Citation

  • Ariane Szafarz, 2008. "An alternative to statistical discrimination theory," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 10(5), pages 1-6.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-08j70001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2008/Volume10/EB-08J70001A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth J. Arrow, 1998. "What Has Economics to Say about Racial Discrimination?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 91-100, Spring.
    2. 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.
    3. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    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. Claire Dupin Beyssat & Diana Seave Greenwald & Kim Oosterlinck, 2023. "Measuring nepotism and sexism in artistic recognition: the awarding of medals at the Paris Salon, 1850–1880," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 47(3), pages 407-436, September.
    2. Agier, Isabelle & Szafarz, Ariane, 2013. "Microfinance and Gender: Is There a Glass Ceiling on Loan Size?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 165-181.
    3. Sekkat, Khalid & Szafarz, Ariane & Tojerow, Ilan, 2015. "Women at the Top in Developing Countries: Evidence from Firm-Level Data," IZA Discussion Papers 9537, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Eva O. Arceo-Gomez & Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez, 2014. "Race and Marriage in the Labor Market: A Discrimination Correspondence Study in a Developing Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 376-380, May.
    2. Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Racial Discrimination and Competition," NBER Working Papers 14273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Szafarz, Ariane, 2011. "The modern corporation as a safe haven for taste-based discrimination: An agency model of hiring decisions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 487-497, August.
    4. Carlsson, Magnus & Fumarco, Luca & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2013. "Artifactual Evidence of Discrimination in Correspondence Studies? A Replication of the Neumark Method," IZA Discussion Papers 7619, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Kevin Lang & Jee-Yeon K. Lehmann, 2012. "Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market: Theory and Empirics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 959-1006, December.
    6. Humburg, Martin & van der Velden, Rolf, 2015. "Skills and the graduate recruitment process: Evidence from two discrete choice experiments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 24-41.
    7. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Ariane Szafarz, 2008. "Labor market discrimination as an agency cost," DULBEA Working Papers 08-19.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Basu,Kaushik, 2015. "Discrimination as a coordination device : markets and the emergence of identity," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7490, The World Bank.
    9. Nikoloz Kudashvili, 2018. "Sources of Statistical Discrimination: Experimental Evidence from Georgia," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp612, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    10. Laura K. Gee & Marco Migueis & Sahar Parsa, 2017. "Redistributive choices and increasing income inequality: experimental evidence for income as a signal of deservingness," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 894-923, December.
    11. Batsaikhan, Mongoljin & Gørtz, Mette & Kennes, John & Lyng, Ran Sun & Monte, Daniel & Tumennasan, Norovsambuu, 2021. "Discrimination and Daycare Choice: Evidence from a Randomized Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 14874, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Peter Younkin & Venkat Kuppuswamy, 2018. "The Colorblind Crowd? Founder Race and Performance in Crowdfunding," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3269-3287, July.
    13. Andrej Cupák & Pavel Ciaian & d'Artis Kancs, 2021. "Comparing the immigrant-native pay gap: A novel evidence from home and host countries," EERI Research Paper Series EERI RP 2021/05, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    14. Zschirnt, Eva & Ruedin, Didier, 2016. "Ethnic discrimination in hiring decisions: A meta-analysis of correspondence tests 1990–2015," EconStor Preprints 142176, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    15. John Morgan & Felix Várdy, 2009. "Diversity in the Workplace," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 472-485, March.
    16. Younkin, Peter & Kuppuswamy, Venkat, 2019. "Discounted: The effect of founder race on the price of new products," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 389-412.
    17. John J. Donohue III, 2005. "The Law and Economics of Antidiscrimination Law," NBER Working Papers 11631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:10:y:2008:i:5:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Xiao Lin & Mark J. Browne & Annette Hofmann, 2022. "Race discrimination in the adjudication of claims: Evidence from earthquake insurance," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(3), pages 553-580, September.
    20. Mongoljin Batsaikhan & Mette Gørtz & John Kennes & Ran Sun Lyng & Daniel Monte & Norovsambuu Tumennasan, 2019. "Daycare Choice and Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from a Randomized Survey," Economics Working Papers 2019-02, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    21. Kudashvili, Nikoloz & Lergetporer, Philipp, 2022. "Minorities’ strategic response to discrimination: Experimental evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-08j70001. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.