Download This PaperThe Heterogeneous Effect of Affirmative Action on Performance
Forthcoming, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Harvard Law School John M. Olin Center Discussion Paper No. 805
58 Pages Posted: 12 Feb 2015 Last revised: 21 Dec 2018
Date Written: January 2015
Abstract
This paper experimentally investigates the effect of gender-based affirmative action (AA) on performance in the lab, focusing on a tournament environment. The tournament is based on GRE math questions commonly used in graduate school admission, and at which women are known to perform worse on average than men. We find heterogeneous effect of AA on female participants: AA lowers the performance of high-ability women and increases the performance of low-ability women. Our results are consistent with two possible mechanisms—one is that AA changes incentives differentially for low- and high-ability women, and the second is that AA triggers stereotype threat. An earlier version of this paper was circulated as “Affirmative Action and Stereotype Threat.”
Keywords: Affirmative action, stereotype threat, gender differences, GRE performance
JEL Classification: C91, I28, J16, J78, K19, K31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
