Title: The impact of taste-based discrimination and pay transparency on job search behavior: An experimental analysis

Speaker: Gergely Horvarth https://sites.google.com/site/horvathgergely

Date: Wednesday,9th June 2021

Time: 5:00pm – 6:30pm (Beijing time)

Location：Room 311 Hong Yuan Building

Abstract: 

In this paper, we study the impact of taste-based discrimination and pay transparency on the job search behavior of discriminated workers in a stylized search experiment. We find that individuals significantly deviate from the optimal search behavior by setting a lower search effort and a lower reservation wage than the theoretical predictions. These deviations imply that the negative effects of taste-based discrimination on the wages and welfare of discriminated workers are lower than what the search model predicts. When pay transparency is introduced, some workers reject offers from discriminating employers. This behavior is inconsistent with payoff-maximization and can be explained by fairness concerns. Overall, pay transparency leads to (weakly) higher wages but not higher welfare as search duration also (weakly) increases.