TY - JOUR

T1 - Negative side effects of affirmative action

T2 - How quotas lead to distortions in performance evaluation

AU - Petters, Lea M.

AU - Schröder, Marina

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the editor and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. We thank the Center for Social and Economic Behavior (C-SEB) through the C-SEB Gender Research Grant and the German Research Foundation (DFG) through priority program SPP 1764 [SL 46/2–1] and the research unit “Design and Behavior – Economic Engineering of Firms and Markets” [FOR 1371] for financial support. We thank the audience at the ESA World Meeting 2016 in Jerusalem, ESA European Meeting in Bergen, IMEBESS 2017 in Barcelona, the Research Seminar in Applied Microeconomics in Cologne, the C-SEB Workshop at the University of Cologne, and the Gender Economics Workshop at the DIW Berlin, and Stefano Balietti, Uri Gneezy, Bernd Irlenbusch, Andreas Leibbrandt, Ernesto Reuben, Dirk Sliwka, and Susanne Steffes for helpful comments and suggestions. We thank Tobias Danzeisen and Ruth Neeßen for excellent support in programming and conducting the experiment.

PY - 2020/11

Y1 - 2020/11

N2 - We study the impact of affirmative action on peer-review behavior. We conduct a real-effort tournament experiment, in which prizes are awarded according to peer-review evaluation. Between treatments, we vary whether or not a quota is implemented and whether or not affirmed individuals face ex-ante procedural disadvantages. We find that quotas lead to distorted peer-reviews, where affirmed individuals receive significantly less favorable reviews than non-affirmed peers with similar performance. Distortions in peer-reviews are robust to changes in ex-ante procedural fairness and seem to be driven by enhanced competition among affirmed individuals.

AB - We study the impact of affirmative action on peer-review behavior. We conduct a real-effort tournament experiment, in which prizes are awarded according to peer-review evaluation. Between treatments, we vary whether or not a quota is implemented and whether or not affirmed individuals face ex-ante procedural disadvantages. We find that quotas lead to distorted peer-reviews, where affirmed individuals receive significantly less favorable reviews than non-affirmed peers with similar performance. Distortions in peer-reviews are robust to changes in ex-ante procedural fairness and seem to be driven by enhanced competition among affirmed individuals.

KW - Affirmative action

KW - Creative work

KW - Peer-review

KW - Procedural fairness

KW - Quota

KW - Real effort

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091779061&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103500

DO - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103500

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85091779061

VL - 130

JO - European Economic Review

JF - European Economic Review

SN - 0014-2921

M1 - 103500

ER -