Data di Pubblicazione:
2013
Citazione:
Costless discrimination and unequal achievements in an experimental tournament / A. Filippin, F. Guala. - In: EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS. - ISSN 1386-4157. - 16:3(2013 Sep), pp. 285-305.
Abstract:
We investigate the emergence of discrimination in an experiment where individuals affiliated
to different groups compete for a monetary prize, submitting independent bids to an
auctioneer. The auctioneer receives perfect information about the bids (i.e. there is no
statistical discrimination), and she has no monetary incentive to favour the members of her
own group (the bidders are symmetric). We observe nonetheless some discrimination by
auctioneers, who tend to assign the prize more frequently to a member of their own group
when two or more players put forward the highest bid. Out-group bidders react to this bias
and reduce significantly their bids, causing an average decay of their earnings throughout thegame, with cumulative effects that generate strongly unequal outcomes. Because the initialbias is costless, such mechanism can survive even in competitive market, providing arationale for a well-known puzzle in the literature, i.e. the long-run persistence of discrimination.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
discrimination; experiment; groups; tournament
Elenco autori:
A. Filippin, F. Guala
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