Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

Well-educated and prosperous, Asians are called the “model minority” in the United States. However, they appear disproportionately underrepresented in leadership positions, a problem known as the “bamboo ceiling.” It remains unclear why this problem exists and whether it applies to all Asians or only particular Asian subgroups. To investigate the mechanisms and scope of the problem, we compared the leadership attainment of the two largest Asian subgroups in the United States: East Asians (e.g., Chinese) and South Asians (e.g., Indians).

Women participate in cultural activities such as art, music, and literature at higher rates than men, yet as creative professionals, their career achievements tend to lag behind men’s. Scholars interested in this puzzle have largely focused on gender bias in the evaluations of audiences and other gatekeepers. In this paper, we identify differences in the relative novelty of creative products, which we argue are shaped by the conditions under which male and female artists produce their work.

We review the literature on recent changes to US employment relationships, focusing on the causes of those changes and their consequences for inequality. The US employment model has moved from a closed, internal system to one more open to external markets and institutional pressures. We describe the growth of short-term employment relationships, contingent work, outsourcing, and performance pay as well as the success of social identity movements in shaping employment benefits.

We study optimal workforce and contract design for a firm that employs a team of two agents. The agents have possibly diverse demographic characteristics captured by their discount factors. We also study optimal team design for four agents with given discount factors—two with low discount factors and two with high discount factors—who are to be assigned to two teams and identify conditions under which diverse assignment is optimal.