Die Reihe RFBerlin Applied Economics Seminar bringt führende Forschende nach Berlin, die ihre aktuellen Arbeiten vorstellen und ins Gespräch kommen. Diesmal ist Tatiana Mocanu zu Gast.
Tatiana Mocanu ist Assistant Professor am Department of Economics der Columbia University und Research Fellow im RFBerlin Network. Ihre Forschung liegt in der Arbeitsmarkt- und Finanzwissenschaft und untersucht, wie betriebliche Praktiken und politische Regelsetzung auf Ungleichheiten nach Geschlecht und ethnischer Zugehörigkeit auf dem Arbeitsmarkt wirken.
Thema:
Equity and Efficiency Consequences of Racial Quotas in Hiring
Race-based quotas in labor markets are commonly criticized for increasing diversity at the expense of the quality of hired candidates. Yet if hiring absent the quota is suboptimal, due to discrimination or imperfect screening, quotas may improve equity without reducing efficiency. I evaluate this empirically by studying the introduction of racial hiring quotas in Brazil’s public sector and a newly constructed, large-scale dataset covering the complete applicant pools, candidates’ hiring scores, and the hiring decision rule. This allows me to directly identify counterfactual hires who would have been hired absent the quota and marginal hires selected solely due to the quota, moving beyond average comparisons to isolate the quota’s effect at the margin. Exploiting both the difference in exposure across similar federal and state jobs and a discontinuity generated by the allocation rule, I investigate the policy’s effects on employment, earnings, and worker quality. The quota increases non-white applicants’ hiring probability by 13 percentage points, more than closing the pre-existing racial hiring gap. Marginal non-white hires experience wage gains of approximately 100%, primarily by moving out of lower-paying private-sector jobs, while displaced white applicants experience a wage decline of 12%. Despite lower hiring thresholds, I find no evidence of adverse efficiency effects, suggesting that equity gains can be achieved without efficiency losses
Details zur Veranstaltung:
Datum: 24. November 2026
Zeit: 14:00–15:15 Uhr
Teilnahme: Das Seminar ist öffentlich und richtet sich an ein wissenschaftliches Publikum. Die Veranstaltungssprache ist Englisch.
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