Working Paper: NBER ID: w25322
Authors: Anat Bracha; Alma Cohen; Lynn Conell-Price
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.
Keywords: Affirmative Action; Gender; Performance; Stereotype Threat; Incentives
JEL Codes: C91; I28; J16; J78; K19; K31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Stereotype threat (C92) | Performance of women (J16) |
| Performance of low-ability women (J79) | Incentives to exert effort (J33) |
| Performance of high-ability women (D29) | Reduced incentives to compete fiercely (L13) |
| Affirmative Action (AA) (J78) | Performance of low-ability women (J79) |
| Affirmative Action (AA) (J78) | Performance of high-ability women (D29) |