Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP10215
Authors: Luc Behaghel; Bruno Crapon; Thomas Le Barbanchon
Abstract: We evaluate an experimental program in which the French public employment service anonymized resumes for firms that were hiring. Firms were free to participate or not; participating firms were then randomly assigned to receive either anonymous resumes or name-bearing ones. We find that participating firms become less likely to interview and hire minority candidates when receiving anonymous resumes. We show how these unexpected results can be explained by the self-selection of firms into the program and by the fact that anonymization prevents the attenuation of negative signals when the candidate belongs to a minority.
Keywords: anonymous applications; discrimination; randomized experiments
JEL Codes: J71; J78
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Self-selection of firms (L26) | Adverse outcomes for minority candidates (J15) |
| Anonymous resumes (Y70) | Decrease in interview rates of minority candidates (J15) |
| Anonymous resumes (Y70) | Decrease in hiring rate for minority candidates (J79) |
| Anonymous resumes (Y70) | Increase in hiring rate for majority candidates (J79) |