Bayesian Bigot? Statistical Discrimination, Stereotypes, and Employer Decision Making

Bayesian Bigot? Statistical Discrimination, Stereotypes, and Employer Decision Making.

Much of the debate over the underlying causes of discrimination centers on the rationality of employer decision making. Economic models of statistical discrimination emphasize the cognitive utility of group estimates as a means of dealing with the problems of uncertainty. Sociological and social-psychological models, by contrast, question the accuracy of group-level attributions. Although mean ...

Dynamic Bayesian Decision - Making :

Bayesian Decision Making Theory

Statistical Discrimination with Neighborhood Effects: Can Integration Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?

We introduce neighborhood effects in the costs of human capital acquisition into a model of statistical discrimination in labor markets. This creates a link between the level of segregation and the likelihood and extent of statistical discrimination. As long as negative stereotypes persist in the face of increasing integration, skill levels rise in the disadvantaged group and fall in the advant...

Individual discrimination capability and collective decision-making.

Amplification is the main component of many collective phenomena in social and gregarious insects. In a society, individuals face a mixed palette of odours coming from different groups (lines, strains) and individuals present discrimination capabilities. However, often at the collective level, different groups may cooperate and act together. To understand this apparent contradiction, we use a m...