Affirmative action or just discrimination? A study on the endogenous emergence of quotas

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractAffirmative action rules are often implemented to promote women on labor markets. Little is known, however, about how and whether such rules emerge endogenously in groups of potentially affected subjects. We experimentally investigate whether subjects vote for affirmative action rules, against, or abstain. If approved by the vote, a quota rule is implemented that favors women in one treatment, but members of an artificially created group based on random color assignment in another treatment. We find that quota rules based on gender are implemented frequently and do not affect the performance of men and women in a contest.Quota rules based on an arbitrary criterion, however, are less often approved and lead to strong individual reactions of advantaged and disadvantaged group members and to efficiency losses.These results show that the effects of affirmative action policies largely depend on whether these policies are viewed favorably within the affected groups.JEL Codes: C91, C92, D03

The spillover effects of affirmative action on competitiveness and unethical behavior

“…Based on the previous literature on dishonesty (e.g., Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi, 2013;Abeler et al, 2016), we expect that not all subjects lie and those who lie do not lie in full. We also know from Balafoutas et al (2016) that AA has a different impact on behavior if this policy is perceived favorably or not within the affected group. We conjecture that if they do not find AA legitimate, the subjects from the non-protected category increase discrimination (if any) against the subjects from the other caste, compared to a setting without AA.…”

“…Indeed, if this policy is perceived as unfair (for example, because of a fear that more able individuals are passed over in competition by less able individuals from the other group or because the lower status people do not need any help to compete), it may generate spite against the protected members. Indeed, feelings of injustice can lead to sabotage (e.g., Ambrose et al, 2002;Leibbrandt et al, 2015) or retaliatory actions (Fallucchi and Quercia, 2017), and Affirmative Action is less effective when considered as based on an illegitimate criterion (Balafoutas et al, 2016). The policy may also lead some subjects to cheat to compensate for the possible disadvantage introduced by Affirmative Action.…”

The Spillover Effects of Affirmative Action on Competitiveness and Unethical Behavior

“…Based on the literature on dishonesty (Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi, 2013;Abeler et al, 2016), we expect that not all subjects lie and not in full. We also know from Balafoutas et al (2016) that AA has a different impact on behavior if this type of policy is perceived favorably or not within the affected group. We conjecture that if they do not find the AA intervention legitimate, the subjects from the non-protected category increase their bias (if any) against the subjects from the other caste, compared to a setting without AA.…”

“…Indeed, if Affirmative Action is perceived by this category as unfair (for example because they fear that more able individuals from their own group are passed over in competition by less able individuals from the other group or because the lower status people do not need any help to compete), it may generate spite against the protected members. Indeed, it has been shown that feelings of injustice can lead to sabotage (e.g., Ambrose et al, 2002;Leibrandt et al, 2015) and that Affirmative Action is less effective when considered as based on an illegitimate criterion (Balafoutas et al, 2016). The policy may also lead some subjects to cheat to compensate for the possible disadvantage introduced by Affirmative Action.…”

Do college admissions counselors discriminate? Evidence from a correspondence-based field experiment

“…Arcidiacono et al (2015) provide a thorough review of affirmative action policies and the extensive literature examining their impact on a variety of outcomes. See Balafoutas et al (2016) for an experimental investigation into how affirmative action rules emerge and relate to discrimination.…”