Review of Economic Studies 2026
Early-Career Discrimination: Spiraling or Self-Correcting?
Abstract
Do workers from social groups with comparable productivity distributions obtain comparable lifetime earnings? We study how a small amount of early-career discrimination propagates over time when workers’ productivity is revealed through employment. In breakdown learning environments that primarily track on-the-job failures, such discrimination spirals into a substantial lifetime earnings gap for groups of comparable productivity, whereas in breakthrough learning environments that track successes, early-career discrimination can be self-corrected, so comparable groups obtain comparable lifetime earnings. This contrast persists in large labor markets and with flexible wages, inconclusive learning, and misspecified employer beliefs.
- DOI
- 10.1093/restud/rdag092
- Language
- en
- Sources
- crossref