Attentional role of quota implementation

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Documents

  • Fulltext

    Final published version, 840 KB, PDF document

  • Andrei Matveenko
  • Sergei Mikhalishchev
In this paper, we introduce a new role of quotas, e.g. labor market quotas: the attentional role. We study the effect of quota implementation on the attention allocation strategy of a rationally inattentive (RI) manager. We find that quotas induce attention: a RI manager who is forced to fulfill a quota, unlike an unrestricted RI manager, never rejects minority candidates without acquiring information about them. We also demonstrate that in our model quotas are behaviorally equivalent to subsidies. In addition, we analyze different goals that the social planner can achieve by implementing quotas. First, quotas can eliminate sta-tistical discrimination, i.e. make the chances of being hired independent from the group identity. Second, when the hiring manager has inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of candidates’ productivities, the so-cial planner can make the manager behave as if she has correct beliefs. Finally, we show how our results can be used to set a quota level that increases the expected value of the chosen candidates.
Original languageEnglish
Article number105356
JournalJournal of Economic Theory
Volume198
Number of pages25
ISSN0022-0531
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Sep 2021

Number of downloads are based on statistics from Google Scholar and www.ku.dk


No data available

ID: 280609613