Affirmative Action and Application Strategies: Evidence from Field Experiments in Colombia
Affirmative action changes incentives at all stages of the employment process. In this paper, we study the effects of affirmative action statements in job ads on i) the effort expended on the application process and ii) the manifestation of emotions, as measured by the textual analysis content of the motivation letter. To this end, we use data from two field experiments conducted in Colombia. We find that women spend less time in the application process in the Control condition than men. Besides, female motivation letters exhibit lower levels of emotion, as measured by valence, arousal, and dominance. However, those differences vanish in the affirmative action treatment when we announced to job-seekers that half of the positions were reserved for women. In the Affirmative Action condition, the time dedicated by women significantly increased. Besides, the motivation letters written by the female candidates showed a significant increase in the expression of positive emotions. The results indicate that affirmative action policies can have significant encouraging effects on both effort and appeal of job applications of women, thereby reducing the gender gap in these outcomes.Hidden moral costs of control: Field evidence from performance appraisals in the public sector
Marcela Ibanez, Jan Priebe, Gerhard Riener, Dewi SusantiWe test the impact of introducing performance appraisals in a field experiment with 2,409 teachers from 270 public primary schools in Indonesia. Employing three distinct treatment arms that vary the appraisal scheme and its financial consequences, we find that performance appraisals reduce generosity at the workplace and increase dishonest behavior. While the effects exist across all treatment arms, they are particularly pronounced in treatment arms in which performance appraisals are linked to explicit financial sanctions. Our study sheds light on underlying mechanisms and real-world consequences. In particular, we show that teacher effort did not change due to the monthly performance evaluations, while teachers appear to retaliate against its evaluators (community members).
All that glitters is not gold? Approaching the sub-national and spatial impact of a gold rush and policy changes
Carlos Adrián Saldarriaga Isaza, Sergio Alonso Orrego Suaza, Marcela Ibáñez Diaz, Juan Carlos Muñoz Mora, María Natalia CantetOver the last 20 years, there has been a rapid expansion of gold mining in Colombia. This proposal aims to investigate the impacts of this boom on local socioeconomic and environmental conditions (deforestation). In particular, we study the impact of the change in the mining royalties regime on the regional development path. The proposed analysis is based on secondary data over 1122 Colombia municipalities using spatial econometric and qualitative techniques. Our identification strategy considers exogenous variation in gold mining potential given by geographical and environmental factors. The use of spatial correlation allows estimating the spillover effects on neighboring units. The research generates a novel data set that integrates panel data on the Colombian municipalities' geographical, socioeconomic, and environmental characteristics over 20 years. We contribute to the international discussion on the relationship between mining and development and provide insights into mining policy.
Income Risk, Precautionary Saving, and Loss Aversion - An Empirical Test
Marcela Ibanez and Sebastian SchneiderThis paper empirically examines the behavioral precautionary saving hypothesis by Kőszegi and Rabin (2009), stating that uncertainty about future income triggers saving because of loss aversion. We extend their theoretical analysis to consider the internal margin, i.e., the strength, of loss aversion. We empirically study the relationship between income risk, experimentally elicited loss aversion, and precautionary savings. We do so using a sample of 640 individuals from the low-income population of Bogotá, characterized by limited financial education and subject to substantial income risk. In line with the theoretical predictions, we find that an increase in income risk is associated with higher savings for loss-averse individuals. This increase in savings grows with the degree of loss aversion. Thus, as suggested by Kőszegi and Rabin (2009), but contrarily to common assumptions, our findings establish that loss aversion is not necessarily an obstacle to saving and thus identify new approaches of increasing saving among individuals with low financial education.