Wages and diversity : evidence from minority MBA job officers

In this thesis, I develop a model for the economic impact of corporate ethnic diversity, and for the relationship between firm diversity and compensation offered to minority workers. I construct a sample of information from a survey of job offers made to graduating African-American MBAs that specifically exploits the presence of individuals with multiple job offers. Only by correcting for the quality of the candidate, can genuine inter-firm comparisons be made. Empirical testing of the data indicates a positive relationship between compensation and the career aspects of diversity (minority retention and promotion) and a negative one for the social, environmental components. This result suggests that diversity initiatives have heterogeneous impacts. While some policies are closely associated with providing worker utility (and thus appearing as a compensating differential), other policies (e.g., those which impact overall career paths) may be associated with increased productivity on the part of minority recruits.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Miller, Amalia R. (Amalia Rebecca), 1976-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Scott Stern.

• Economics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/65056

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/65056