Don't Demotivate, Discriminate

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kamphorst, Jurjen J. A.; Swank, Otto H.
• 署名单位: Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Tinbergen Institute
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20140204
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 140-165
• 关键词: promotion; incentives; policies

摘要

This paper offers a new theory of discrimination in the workplace. We consider a manager who has to assign two tasks to two employees. The manager has superior information about the employees' abilities. We show that besides an equilibrium where the manager does not discriminate, equilibria exist where the manager discriminates in favor of the employee whom the employees expect to be favored. The manager, who has no taste for discrimination, discriminates in order to avoid demotivating the favorite. We show that the nondiscriminatory equilibrium is unstable. Yet the manager would prefer to commit not to discriminate.