DDRIE: Economic Consequences of Discrimination Against Minority Bosses by Subordinates

This doctoral dissertation research project will use experimental methods to study the causes and consequences of discrimination against minority managers who are underrepresented in leadership positions. Prejudice, discrimination especially aimed at minority manger, and racial and cultural barriers keep productive people out of, or decrease their effectiveness in, the labor market.

Besides human costs, this mis-allocation of talent can slow economic growth, thus preventing countries from achieving their potential to improve the welfare of citizens as well as broaden opportunities for under-represented groups and prevent the development of entrepreneurial talent in low income areas where upward mobility may depend on entrepreneurship. The focus of this study is on a specific type of discrimination: employees’ discrimination against minority employers and supervisors.

This will be one of the few studies that uses an innovative approach to study discrimination from below. The findings of this study will be helpful in understanding the extent to which discrimination from subordinate workers thwart the upward mobility of minority groups. It will inform on policies to reduce discrimination in the workplace and provide equal opportunity for all.

This project aims to answer three main questions: (i) Do minority employers and supervisors face discrimination from below in labor markets? (ii) What are the underlying motivations?; and (iii) What are the economic consequences of such discrimination from below? This research will use two field experiments to test for the presence of bottom-up discrimination, and study its economic consequences for minorities in the labor market.

This research makes some contributions to the growing empirical literature on the economics of discrimination. This is the first study to provide experimental evidence on discrimination from below in real world field setting. Second, unlike most field experiments on discrimination in labor markets, the experimental design allows for an analysis of the underlying motivations for discrimination from below.

The results of this research has important policy implications to decrease labor market discrimination and improve the efficiency of labor markets and thus increase economic outcomes. In addition to economic growth, the results of this research project has the potential to provide inputs into policies to decrease inequality as well as expand entrepreneurial and managerial opportunities for under-represented groups.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.