TY  - JOUR
AU  - Scotchmer,Suzanne
TI  - Affirmative Action in Hierarchies
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11213
PY  - 2005
Y2  - March 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11213
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11213.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Suzanne Scotchmer
Department of Economics
Evans Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720-3880
Tel: 510/643-8562
Fax: 510/643-9657
E-Mail: scotch@berkeley.edu
AB  - If promotion in a hierarchy is based on a random signal of ability, rates of promotion will be affected by risk-taking. Further, the numbers and abilities of risk-takers and non-risk-takers will be different at each stage of the hierarchy, and the ratio will be changing. I show that, under mild conditions, more risk-takers than non-risk-takers will survive at early stages, but they will have lower ability. At later stages, this will be reversed: Fewer risk-takers than non-risk-takers survive, but they will have higher ability. I give several interpretations for how these theorems relate to affirmative action, in light of considerable evidence that males are more risk-taking than females.
ER  -