Diversity and the timing of preference in hiring decisions

Gender and racial disparities in labor-market outcomes are often quite striking, and effort s to diversify business, political, faculty, and administrative offices are often frustratingly slow in bearing fruit. Frankly, our own profession still includes disproportionately few women and members of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic-minority groups ( Bayer and Rouse, 2016 ). While ?removing implicit and institutional barriers? is a common directive, and the rewards are potentially large, identifying these often-subtle barriers can be challenging While experimental evidence supports taste-based racial discrimination as a direct contributor to unequal treatment We consider a hiring procedure in which candidates are evaluated in sequence by two agents of the firm. We illustrate how one agent?s interest in enhancing diversity can indirectly influence the other agent?s hiring decisions. Where there is an unequal interest in diversity across the two decision makers, this can be sufficiently offsetting that even highly productive candidates who also enhance diversity are less likely to be hired. In an experimental setting, we first establish that incentivizing subjects to choose females (males) induces them into choosing females (males). Importantly, then, we establish that when subjects who screen candidates in an earlier stage know about this pending incentive they systematically avoid forwarding females (males) when they jeopardize the candidacy of higher-ranking male (female) candidates. We consider a hiring procedure in which candidates are evaluated in sequence by two agents of the firm. We illustrate how one agent?s interest in enhancing diversity can indirectly influence the other agent?s hiring decisions. Where there is an unequal interest in diversity across the two decision makers, this can be sufficiently offsetting that even highly productive candidates who also enhance diversity are less likely to be hired. In an experimental setting, we first establish that incentivizing subjects to choose females (males) induces them into choosing females (males). Importantly, then, we establish that when subjects who screen candidates in an earlier stage know about this pending incentive they systematically avoid forwarding females (males) when they jeopardize the candidacy of higher-ranking male (female) candidates. ? 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.