Eventi del

14 2018 12:30
Sala riunioni 5.e4.sro4 - Via Roentgen, 1

Applied Micro

The Dynamics of Discrimination

Alex Imas (Carnegie Mellon University)

Joint with BELSS (Bocconi Experimental Laboratory for the Social Sciences)

 

Abstract

We model the dynamics of discrimination and show how its evolution can identify the underlying cause. We test these theoretical predictions in a field experiment on a large online platform where users post content that is evaluated by other users on the platform. We assign posts to accounts that exogenously vary by gender and history of evaluations. With no prior evaluations, women face signicant discrimination, while following a sequence of positive evaluations, the direction of discrimination reverses: posts by women are favored over those by men. According to our theoretical predictions, this dynamic reversal implies discrimination driven by biased beliefs.