Events at CERGE-EI

Date: Thursday, 6 December 2018
Time: 17:00-20:00
Duration: 180 minutes
Course instructor: Vojtěch Bartoš

This workshop is part of the Experimental Economics series.

Registration for this workshop is open.

Please read about our selection process. Follow EDH on Facebook for the latest news and tips.

Content:

Women have lower pay than men. African Americans in the US experience lower returns to their academic degrees than whites. Roma in the Czech Republic are having difficulties when looking for a job. Disabled people are facing higher prices when getting their cars repaired. Lower caste children perform worse than higher caste children in India. Eastern Jews are less trusted than Ashkenazi Jews both by the Ashkenazi as well as by their own kin in Israel. Promotion decisions on male and female academics are based on different criteria… While general public would often attribute such differences to discrimination, it is rather difficult to prove that what we observe is not driven by other factors.

This workshop offers brief insights into the economic theories of discrimination and into empirical methods used in detecting discrimination in domains mentioned above and beyond. We will address both approaches using observational data, as well as how experiments in the field and in laboratory can be used to detect discriminative behavior. After establishing that discrimination exists, we will use the theoretical foundations to understand the driving motives for discrimination. Understanding the channels will help us to design potential remedies. In some cases, markets can do the work, in others, interventions might be needed. Interestingly, however, even some well-intentioned interventions can backfire. Curious to know why? And want to test some experiments hands-on? Join the workshop!

Prerequisites:

• Please bring your laptop or smartphone – we will try some of the experiments online

About the facilitator:

Vojtěch Bartoš
Vojtěch Bartoš is an Assistant Professor at the University of Munich, Germany, where he started working after completing his PhD in Economics at CERGE-EI in 2016. In his research he uses economic experiments to study topics ranging from discrimination, inter-ethnic cooperation, through behavioral effects of poverty. His research uses data from experiments conducted in Afghanistan, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Malawi, and Uganda. You can visit his personal website at vojtechbartos.net. 

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