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Can output competition in output performance undermine ethnic discrimination during the hiring process?

Last registered on October 27, 2021
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Can output competition in output performance undermine ethnic discrimination during the hiring process?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0006281
Initial registration date
August 13, 2020

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
August 13, 2020, 12:34 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
October 27, 2021, 11:12 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Australia
Region
Brisbane

Primary Investigator

Name
Hairong Hu
Affiliation
Queensland University of Technology
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2020-11-01
End date
2024-02-28
Keywords
Labor
Additional Keywords
ethnic discrimination, lab experiment, labour market competition, hiring discrimination
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
To examine if the competition in the labour market can reduce taste-based ethnic discrimination during the hiring process, we will use a lab experiment to stimulate the hiring process. In this study, we are interested in the effect of output competition on ethnic discrimination during the hiring process. The main experiment is a hiring game with 2x2 treatments. In each session, participants will play a role as employers and they are required to hire one of the candidates as their employees and form a group. The 2x2 treatments differ by 1) whether the ethic information of employee candidates is given 2) whether they have an output competition with the other groups. Employers payments will depend on their employee's performance and the rankings under the treatments with output competition. Through this experiment, we expect to capture the effects of output competition on taste-based ethnic discrimination.


External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hu, Hairong. 2021. "Can output competition in output performance undermine ethnic discrimination during the hiring process?." AEA RCT Registry. October 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6281-2.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
1) Baseline (A): No ethnic information is given in profiles, no output competition
2) Baseline- employer competition (B): No ethnic information is given in profiles, output competition exists
3) Baseline - Type (C): Ethnic information is given in profiles, no output competition
4) Treatment (D): Ethnic information is given in profiles, output competition exists.
Intervention Start Date
2021-12-01
Intervention End Date
2024-02-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Probability of a minority candidate being hired, controlled by given scores (rank), age, and treatments.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1) Expect no difference in hiring decision between Treatment A and Treatment B
2) The probability of being hired is lower in Treatment C than in Treatment D
3) The probability of a minority being hired are lower in Treatment C than in Treatment A
4) Expect no difference in hiring decision between Treatment A or Treatment B, compared to Treatment D

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experiment includes two parts. The first part is the preliminary phase and the second part is a hiring game. In the preliminary phase, we will ask participants to finish an individual experiment, including 1) an individual task repeated five times 2) an exit survey. And at each time, participants have 2 minutes to finish.

We will classify all the profiles into two groups 1) ethnic majority group and 2) ethnic minority group.

The second part consists of a hiring game. We will recruit participants from Prolific, who only satisfy the majority identification. In the hiring game, all the employers have to choose and hire 1 employee based on given profiles of individuals recruited from the preliminary phase to finish the game. Each session has 6 profiles from the majority group, and 6 profiles from the minority group. We have 4 different treatments with differences in 1) given information in the profiles of employees candidates and 2) Competition in output performance.
Experimental Design Details
1) preliminary phase: The individual task is a 4-letter word anagram that participants need to correctly rearrange as many as possible sets of 4 letters to a meaningful word in 2 minutes. We will also capture the individual demographic information through an exit survey. This is to capture the actual ability and generate the employee profiles used for the hiring game.
2) We will classify all the profiles into two groups 1) majority group and 2) minority group.

1) Majority: Those who self-reported as ``White" in the exit survey and are born locally in, United States. In Prolific, we would have further pre-screen criteria for selecting the majority group: 1) Both their nationality and residency must be the United States 2) Their first language must be English. 3) Their surnames (if willing to provide) must be European-sounding names.

2) Minority group: Those who self-reported as other options, except ``Mixed" and ``Others", and born overseas countries (not include Australia, Canada, United States or the United Kingdom). Therefore, we do not consider the second generation in this group.

Participants that cannot fall into any group will finish the experiment and their dataset will not be carried to the next part of the hiring game.
Randomization Method
Randomised by a computer and a computer software
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Each session has 2 participants. 100 sessions for each treatment. The total will be 800 individuals.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Each session has 12 profiles. Total will be 4800 observations.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
100 sessions
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials