Experimental Design
We conduct a hiring experiment to study how managers respond to different algorithmic recommendations in recruitment decisions. Managers choose between male and female applicants performing a sports knowledge quiz. While men typically perform better on sports trivia quizzes than women (Bordalo et al, 2019, AER), our sports quiz is designed so that men do not perform better on average than women. If managers hire women despite the initial stereotype they may have against them in this task, they can learn about this true distribution and should thus not discriminate against women. Participants are assigned to one of three treatments: no algorithm (control), an explorative algorithm encouraging hiring from underexplored groups, or an exploitative algorithm favoring groups with higher observed productivity. Managers receive feedback on hired applicants and state beliefs about group performance over multiple rounds. We measure which algorithm managers follow more willingly and how this affects gender-biased hiring discrimination, also considering the influence of managers’ gender stereotypes.