Discrimination

Project descriptions, links to papers and presentation slides

Men stay longer in high-prize work tournaments than women.

Opportunistic crime worse for middle-income

Stealing, shirking and opportunistic behavior in general can create barriers to the development of markets. We use a field experiment to identify opportunistic crime in a task that is important and relevant for trade: the delivery of mail. Without a reliable system for transporting goods, trade and on-line commerce is severely hampered. We subtly manipulate the content and information available in mail sent to households across neighborhoods that
vary by income, and we detect high levels of shirking and stealing. Eighteen percent of the mail never arrived at its destination, and significantly more was lost if there was even a slight hint of something additional inside the envelope. Our results demonstrate the importance of transaction costs created by crime and that not all populations are equally affected. Middle income neighborhoods suffer the most.

Link to paper

Castillo, Marco, Ragan Petrie, Maximo Torero and Angelino Viceisza, 2014, “Lost in the Mail: A Field Experiment on Crime,” Economic Inquiry, 52(1), 285-303

Discrimination eliminated with information

People judge others by their appearance, but relevant information reduces this by two-thirds

We find evidence consistent with statistical discrimination in a public good and group formation game. In the game, payoff relevant information is presented to subjects, thereby making it costly to discriminate when choosing group members. We find that behavior is correlated with race and people use race to predict behavior. However, race only matters when information on behavior is absent. These results are further confirmed when incentives are in place to encourage behavior that is counter to stereotypes. Not all subjects discriminate in the same way, suggesting unfamiliarity and some in-group, out-group bias. Overall, the evidence points to a lack of information rather
than discriminatory preferences.

Link to paper

Castillo, Marco and Ragan Petrie, 2010, “Discrimination in the Lab: Does Information Trump Appearance?” Games and Economic Behavior, 68(1), 50-59

Earnings and cooperation higher when people are face-to-face

Face value

People pay attention to the appearance of others, and personal characteristics can affect many types of decisions. We ask, is there informational value in a face in a situation where trust and reciprocity can increase earnings? We use a laboratory trust game experiment where subjects are unable to observe a counterpart, must observe a counterpart or can pay to reveal a counterpart’s photograph. Both senders and responders are willing to pay to observe the photos, and we show that behavior, earnings and efficiency are affected. When subjects are “face to face”, efficiency is enhanced and senders have higher earnings.

Link to paper

Eckel, Catherine and Ragan Petrie, 2011, “Face Value,” American Economic Review, 101(4), 1497-1513

There is more cooperation with beautiful people in the group

Beauty, gender and stereotypes in cooperation

The existence of a beauty premium in the labor market and the male–female wage gap suggests that appearance can matter in the real world. We explore beauty and gender in a public goods experiment and find similar effects. We find a beauty premium, even though beautiful people contribute, on average, no more or less than others. The beauty premium, however, disappears when we provide information on individual contributions, and becomes a beauty penalty. Players seem to expect beautiful people to be more cooperative. Relative to these expectations, they appear more selfish, which in turn results in less cooperation by others. These appear to be clear examples of stereotyping. We also find a substantial benefit to being male, especially with information. This is primarily due to men being better ‘‘leaders.’’ Men tend to make large contributions, and people follow their example and give more in later rounds.

Link to paper

Andreoni, James and Ragan Petrie, 2008, “Beauty, Gender and Stereotypes: Evidence from Laboratory Experiments,” Journal of Economic Psychology, 29, 73-93

People discrimination by beauty and race but place more weight on information when available

Discrimination by beauty and race

We explore the importance of appearance in the endogenous formation of groups using a series of experiments. Participants get to choose who they want in their group, and we manipulate the amount of payoff-relevant information on behavior, thereby making it costly to discriminate based on appearance. We draw participants from a representative sample of a demographically and economically diverse population. This allows broader applicability of our results. We find that beauty predicts desirability as a group member, yet it might mask racial preferences. Payoff-relevant information reduces discrimination a great deal, yet discrimination based on appearance
remains. Although their behavior is the same, unattractive participants have a one in ten chance of making it to the most preferred group, whereas attractive participants have a one in three
chance. Our results are most consistent with taste-based, rather than statistical, discrimination.

Link to paper

Castillo, Marco, Ragan Petrie and Maximo Torero, “Beautiful or White? Discrimination in Group Formation,” Working Paper