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Seminar in Economics | "Does Better Information Reduce Gender Discrimination in the Technology Industry?” with Clementine Van Effentere

Department of Economics welcomes you to a seminar with Clementine Van Effentere, University of Toronto, presenting "Does Better Information Reduce Gender Discrimination in the Technology Industry?” In spite of the large literature documenting discrimination in various contexts, we know little about the impact of providing additional objective information about candidates’ abilities on gender differences in labor market outcomes. We study this question by leveraging data on over 60,000 online interviews for soft- ware developers, combined with the quasi-random introduction of a device providing an objective measure of candidates’ coding and problem solving performance. We provide suggestive evidence that for a given objective performance, women receive lower subjective ratings than men.

Welcome to this Higher Seminar in Economics organised by the Department of Economics, SSE. The seminar speaker is Clementine Van Effentere, University of Toronto who will present "Does Better Information Reduce Gender Discrimination in the Technology Industry?

Abstract

In spite of the large literature documenting discrimination in various contexts, we know little about the impact of providing additional objective information about candidates’ abilities on gender differences in labor market outcomes. We study this question by leveraging data on over 60,000 online interviews for soft- ware developers, combined with the quasi-random introduction of a device providing an objective measure of candidates’ coding and problem solving performance. Despite gender gaps in the objective measure being much smaller than those in subjective interview evaluations, the improved quality of information does not reduce the gender gap in evaluations. We combine these results with a theoretical model, which has testable predictions for how gender gaps in ratings vary with additional information. Our results are not explained by attrition, endogenous matching, positive selection or gender differences in performance. We provide suggestive evidence that for a given objective performance, women receive lower subjective ratings than men.

Our speaker, Clementine Van Effentere, is an Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Toronto. Clementine is an applied microeconomist working on several topics in labour economics, and with a specific focus on gender disparities in multiple areas. 

The seminar takes place at Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 65, room 320.

Please contact kristen.pendleton@hhs.se if you have any questions.

Dept. of Economics Economics Seminar in economics