Fighting Discrimination

Discrimination manifests itself in unequal treatment of people because of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or other traits. It can have a big impact on the social and economic success, the health and psychological well-being of the affected parties. Though overcoming discrimination has been a topic for decades, over the last years it has risen once more to great prominence. The issue of discrimination has recently been discussed in various areas, such as the well-known gender pay gap, so-called safe spaces for LGBTQ people at American universities, the integration of refugees or the inclusion of disabled persons.

There have been various endeavors to reduce the impact of negative discrimination, but the ideal course of action is under dispute. For example, effectiveness and fairness of some more interfering countermeasures, such as affirmative action are heavily debated. Furthermore, safe spaces and the associated culture have been discussed as well, some arguing that a more open confrontation may better for some contexts.

Scope

In this seminar, participants work on measures to identify discrimination and potential approaches to reduce its impact with the tools of experimental economics.

With the support of our chair, students develop their own ideas for the design of an economic lab or field experiment. Impulses and inspirations can be received from Uri Gneezy (on trust and stereotypes in populations well as on gender research), Gary Becker (on taste based discrimination), Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund (on gender), Nora Szech (on beliefs and discrimination), Anna Dreber (gender), Kenneth Arrow and Edmund Phelps (on statistical discrimination), and Claudia Golding (on the gender pay gap and on gender discrimination). Lisa R. Anderson, Roland G. Fryer, Jr. and Charles A. Holt provide an overview from 2005 on experimental literature on discrimination.

Please note that no topics will be handed out. Instead, participants will develop their own research question in the broad field of discrimination.

Students will work in pairs. If the process of pairing up remains unsuccessful, a partner will be assigned. In case of an uneven number of attendants one group of three will be possible.

The seminar starts with an introductory meeting on October 19 at 09:45 in 05.20 1C-01. Ideas for experiments or field studies will be presented in a block event on December 09. Each presentation should last max. 20 minutes. Full attendance in both meetings is required for successful participation in the seminar! Seminar papers of 8 – 10 pages are to be handed in by February 28, 2017.

For bachelor students grades will be based on the quality of presentations and discussions in the seminar (50%) and the seminar paper (50%).

Master students additionally have to hand in two abstracts with their paper. Their grades will be based on the quality of presentations and discussions in the seminar (40%), the seminar paper (40%) and the two abstracts (20%) – one with a maximum length of 100 words and one with a maximum length of 150 words.

Participation will be limited to 12 students.
Application will be possible via the centralized platform until September 11 2016.
https://portal.wiwi.kit.edu/Seminare.
For further questions, please contact Jannis Engel (jannis.engel@kit.edu).