The (in)visible hand: do workers discriminate against employers?

Do employees discriminate against potential employers? We implement a random- ized experiment in an online labor market that is pro-typical for a set-up where employees have the opportunity to discriminate against employers to answer this research question. In our experiment, workers make labor-supply decisions after we randomly expose them to signals about the race and sex of the potential em- ployer. Investigating average effects for the full sample of workers, we find evidence of discrimination on the quantity and quality of work (conditional on working), but not on the general willingness to work in our labor task. Upon completing the experiment, workers fill out a survey in which they report whether they discerned the signals regarding race and sex of the employer. The survey responses reveal an interesting pattern of heterogeneity: subjects who discerned the treatment sig- nals were more likely to work for the minority employer, while those who did not discern the signal were less likely to work for the minority employer. The latter result suggests that discriminating employees try to conceal their behavior ex-post. An additional survey with randomized components among online workers suggests that our results are not driven by statistical discrimination.