Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Do Identity Concerns Affect Labor Supply?

经济学博士论文研究：身份问题会影响劳动力供给吗？

• 批准号: 1919139
• 负责人: Eric Verhoogen
• 金额: $ 2.8万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1919139&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Economics; Do

A sense of identity can be a powerful influence over behavior, including work. Workers who identify themselves as belonging to one group may regard a job associated with a different group as a violation of their identity, especially if the job is associated with a group perceived to have lower social status. This identity channel may partly explain why some groups are over- or under-represented in some occupations. The identity-related mis-representation of groups in occupations leads to a misallocation of talent and cause economic inefficiency. The effect of identity on labor supply, however, has been difficult to establish by researchers for a variety of reasons. This study will use experimental methods to study how identity concerns affect labor supply. The study provides the first experimental test of identity effect on labor supply and distinguishes the effect of intrinsic motivations (e.g. self-image) from extrinsic motivations (e.g. fear of social sanctions). Understanding these identity effects would inform discussions on why occupational choice is not evenly distributed across groups of people with potentially important policy implications. The results of this study will provide major inputs into policies to increase the efficiency of labor markets, improve job matches and increase economic growth. This project examines how identity concerns affect job-specific labor supply using a field experiment. Casual laborers interested in a one-day job opportunity are presented with a large set of potential job offers and asked to choose whether to accept or decline each offer, one of which is randomly implemented. While all offers involve a default manufacturing task, job seekers are also required to spend some time privately on an additional task, which changes across offers. Using separately-collected survey information on the social associations of the tasks and the perceived hierarchy of local social groups, predictions are made of which worker-offer combinations would involve identity concerns. This design allows researchers to quantify the reduction in the job take-up rate that is attributable to the predicted presence of identity concerns. In addition, by randomly varying whether workers expect their job take-up decisions to be publicized to their neighbors or not, one can distinguish the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The results of this research will improve the functioning of labor markets, hence economic growth.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

认同感可以对行为产生强大的影响，包括工作。认为自己属于某一群体的工人可能会认为与另一群体有关的工作侵犯了他们的身份，特别是如果工作与被认为社会地位较低的群体有关。这种身份渠道可以部分解释为什么有些群体在某些职业中的代表性过高或过低。职业中与身份相关的群体错误表征导致了人才的错误配置，并导致经济效率低下。然而，由于种种原因，研究人员很难确定身份对劳动力供给的影响。本研究将采用实验的方法来研究身份关注如何影响劳动力供给。该研究首次对身份对劳动力供给的影响进行了实验检验，并区分了内在动机（如自我形象）和外在动机（如害怕社会制裁）的影响。了解这些身份效应将有助于讨论为什么职业选择在不同人群中的分布不均匀，这可能具有重要的政策意义。这项研究的结果将为提高劳动力市场效率、改善工作匹配和促进经济增长的政策提供重要投入。本研究通过一个实地实验来考察身份认同问题如何影响特定工作的劳动力供给。对一天的工作机会感兴趣的临时工被提供了大量潜在的工作机会，并被要求选择是否接受或拒绝每个工作机会，其中一个是随机实施的。虽然所有的招聘都涉及一个默认的制造任务，但求职者还需要花一些时间私下处理一个额外的任务，这个任务在招聘中会有所不同。使用单独收集的调查信息的社会协会的任务和当地社会群体的感知层次结构，预测哪些工人提供的组合将涉及身份问题。这种设计使研究人员能够量化就业率的下降，这是由于预测存在的身份问题。此外，通过随机改变工人是否期望他们的工作接受决定被公布给他们的邻居或没有，可以区分内在和外在动机的影响。这项研究的成果将改善劳动力市场的功能，从而促进经济增长。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。