NO 362 - Affirmative Action and Application Strategies: Evidence from Field Experiments in Columbia

In this paper, we study the effects of affirmative action statements in job ads on i) the effort expended on the application process and ii) the manifestation of emotions, as measured by the textual analysis of the content of the motivation letter. [...] In the Affirmative Action condition, the time dedicated by women significantly increased and the motivation letters written by the female candidates showed a significant increase in the expression of positive emotions. [...] In this paper, we revisit the question on the impact of AA by analyzing the consequences of this policy in the provision of effort and self-presentation of job Acknowledgments: This research has primarily been funded by the Courant Research Center for Poverty, Equity and Growth, University of Göttingen. [...] The behaviour at the application stage itself is relevant as it determines the appeal of the applicant, the probability of being employed, and influences the quality of a match. [...] We employ sentiment analysis—a technique from the toolkit of NLP—to analyze the content of motivation letters of job applicants and the effects of AA on the same.