The Boss is Watching: How Monitoring Decisions Hurt Black Workers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cavounidis, Costas; Lang, Kevin; Weinstein, Russell
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; University of Warwick; Boston University; National Bureau of Economic Research; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/uead079
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 485-514
• 关键词: statistical discrimination; racial-discrimination; dynamic-model; equilibrium; search; MARKET; wages

摘要

African Americans face shorter employment durations than similar Whites. We hypothesise that employers discriminate in acquiring or acting on ability-relevant information. In our model, monitoring Black, but not White, workers is self-sustaining. New Black hires were more likely fired by previous employers after monitoring. This reduces firms' beliefs about ability, incentivising discriminatory monitoring. We confirm our predictions that layoffs are initially higher for Black than non-Black workers, but that they converge with seniority and decline more with the Armed Forces Qualification Test for Black workers. Two additional predictions, lower lifetime incomes and longer unemployment durations for Black workers, have known empirical support.