Citation

Discussion Paper Details

Please find the details for DP14370 in an easy to copy and paste format below:

Full Details   |   Bibliographic Reference

Full Details

Title: Professional Interactions and Hiring Decisions: Evidence from the Federal Judiciary

Author(s): Marco Battaglini, Jorgen Harris and Eleonora Patacchini

Publication Date: January 2020

Keyword(s): discrimination, Economics of gender and Labor Force Composition

Programme Area(s): Labour Economics

Abstract: We examine the effect of hearing cases alongside female judicial colleagues on the probability that a federal judge hires a female law clerk. Federal judges are assigned to cases and to judicial panels at random and have few limitations on their choices of law clerks: these two features make the federal court system a unique environment in which to study the effect of professional interactions and beliefs in organizations. We constructed a unique dataset by aggregating federal case records from 2007-2017 to collect information on federal judicial panels, and by merging this data with judicial hiring information from the Judicial Yellow Book, a directory of federal judges and clerks. We find that a one standard deviation increase in the fraction of co-panelists who are female increases a judge's likelihood of hiring a female clerk by 4 percentage points. This finding suggests that increases in the diversity of the upper rungs of a profession can shift attitudes in a way that creates opportunities at the entry level of a profession.

For full details and related downloads, please visit: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=14370

Bibliographic Reference

Battaglini, M, Harris, J and Patacchini, E. 2020. 'Professional Interactions and Hiring Decisions: Evidence from the Federal Judiciary'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=14370