Competition and Gender Prejudice: Are Discriminatory Employers Doomed to Fail?

According to Becker's (1957) famous theory on discrimination, entrepreneurs with a strong prejudice against female workers forgo profits by submitting to their tastes. In a competitive market their firms lack efficiency and are therefore forced to leave. We present new empirical evidence for this prediction by studying the survival of startup firms in a large longitudinal matched employer-employee data set from Austria. Our results show that firms with strong preferences for discrimination, i.e. a low share of female employees relatively to the industry average, have significantly shorter survival rates. This is especially relevant for firms starting out with female shares in the lower tail of the distribution. They exit about 18 months earlier than firms with a median share of females. We see no differences in survival between firms at the top of the female share distribution and at the median, though. We further document that highly discriminatory firms that manage to survive submit to market powers and increase their female workforce over time.Firm survival, profitability, female employment, discrimination, market test, matched employer-employee data

Competition and Gender Prejudice: Are Discriminatory Employers Doomed to Fail?

According to Becker's (1957) famous theory on discrimination, entrepreneurs with a strong prejudice against female workers forgo profits by submitting to their tastes. In a competitive market their firms lack efficiency and are therefore forced to leave. We present new empirical evidence for this prediction by studying the survival of startup firms in a large longitudinal matched employer-employee data set from Austria. Our results show that firms with strong preferences for discrimination, i.e. a low share of female employees relatively to the industry average, have significantly shorter survival rates. This is especially relevant for firms starting out with female shares in the lower tail of the distribution. They exit about 18 months earlier than firms with a median share of females. We see no differences in survival between firms at the top of the female share distribution and at the median, though. We further document that highly discriminatory firms that manage to survive submit to market powers and increase their female workforce over time.firm survival, profitability, female employment, discrimination, market test, matched employer-employee data

Female Hires and the Success of Start-up Firms

In this paper we investigate the relationship between females among the first hires of start-up companies and business success. Our results show that firms with female first hires have a higher share of female workers at the end of the first year after entry. Further, we find that firms with female first hires are more successful and stay longer in the market. We conclude that our results support the hypothesis that gender-diversity in leading positions is an advantage for start-up firms.Firm survival, profitability, female employment, discrimination, market test, matched employer-employee data

Female Hires and the Success of Start-up Firms

In this paper we investigate the relationship between females among the first hires of start-up companies and business success. Our results show that firms with female first hires have a higher share of female workers at the end of the first year after entry. Further, we find that firms with female first hires are more successful and stay longer in the market. We conclude that our results support the hypothesis that gender-diversity in leading positions is an advantage for start-up firms.Firm survival, profitability, female employment, discrimination, market test, matched employer-employee data

Female Hires and the Success of Start-up Firms

In this paper we investigate the relationship between females among the first hires of start-up companies and business success. Our results show that firms with female first hires have a higher share of female workers at the end of the first year after entry. Further, we find that firms with female first hires are more successful and stay longer in the market. We conclude that our results support the hypothesis that gender-diversity in leading positions is an advantage for start-up firms.firm survival, profitability, female employment, discrimination, market test, matched employer-employee data

Nuclear Masses in Astrophysics

Among all nuclear ground-state properties, atomic masses are highly specific for each particular combination of N and Z and the data obtained apply to a variety of physics topics. One of the most crucial questions to be addressed in mass spectrometry of unstable radionuclides is the one of understanding the processes of element formation in the Universe. To this end, accurate atomic mass values of a large number of exotic nuclei participating in nucleosynthesis are among the key input data in large-scale reaction network calculations. In this paper, a review on the latest achievements in mass spectrometry for nuclear astrophysics is given.Comment: Proceedings of the 10th Symposium on Nuclei in the Cosmos, NIC X - Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA (10 pages, 4 figures

The Robber Flies (Diptera: Asilidae) of the Albany Pinebush

The Albany Pinebush, a pitch pine-scrub oak sand barrens, was examined for robber flies and the results compared to historical records found in the New York State Museum, Albany. Thirty-six species were recorded of which seventeen were new records. Two species, Cyrtopogon laphriformis and Promachus bastardii, last recorded in 1914 and 1931, respectively, were not located in the survey

Extracting Firm Information from Administrative Records: The ASSD Firm Panel

This paper demonstrates how firm information can be extracted from administrative social security records. We use the Austrian Social Security Database (ASSD) and derive firms from employer identifiers in the universe of private sector workers. To correctly pin down entry end exits we use a worker flow approach which follows clusters of workers as they move across administrative entities. This procedure enables us to define different types of entry and exit such as start-ups, spinoffs, closures, or take-overs. We show that our firm definition results in a demography which is comparable to official statistics of firm registers. The resulting database, covering the period of 1976 to 2006, is a valuable resource for future research on industry evolution in Austria.administrative data, definition of firms, entry and exit types, worker flows

Evaluative Conditioning Of Product Preferences: An Eye-Tracking Perspective

In evaluative conditioning, the affective response toward a neutral stimulus is altered by pairing it with a positive or negative stimulus. One behavioral and two eye tracking studies were conducted to investigate how evaluative conditioning operates on consumer preferences by pairing neutral products with valenced music and using multiple product exemplars and test trials in order to test evaluative effects at the individual level. Study 1 showed an overall positive effect of evaluative conditioning on choice and liking ratings, although there were individual differences in the magnitude and direction of the effect. Study 2 found significant results at the individual level, resulting in three groups based on preferences in choice. Consistent with inferred group differences in conditioning, those who showed positive conditioning effects looked longer and more often at the positively paired products and those with negative conditioning effects showed the opposite pattern. Additionally, valence condition was decodable from the overall pattern of eye movements during conditioning for the majority of participants. Study 3 included product attribute information during testing and found that more time was spent looking at attributes of negatively paired products. Study 3 also showed the same group by valence interaction for looking time and number of looks as in Study 2. Across the three studies, conditioning produced the predicted effects for approximately 42% of participants, effects in the opposite direction for 24%, and no significant effects for 33%. These results indicate clear individual differences in the effects of evaluative conditioning, some of which can be predicted by looking behavior

Testing for Differential Attention to Features in Evaluative Conditioning

One eye tracking and one behavioral experiment examined the possible roles of contingency awareness and attention to stimulus features in evaluative conditioning. These experiments tested whether evaluative conditioning altered the saliency of positive and negative features in consumer products (Study 1) and attitudinal responses to ambivalent pictures (Study 2). Based on the conceptual categorization model, pairing of ambivalent conditioned stimuli with liked or disliked unconditioned stimuli was predicted to result in enhanced attention to affectively congruent features. Study 1 tested this prediction by recording eye movements to determine how attention to features and responses to ambivalent stimuli were altered as a result of conditioning. Counter to the predictions of the conceptual categorization model, pairing of ambivalent products with liked or disliked music did not result in greater attention to affectively congruent features as measured by looking time and frequency. Overall, target features that were inconsistent in valence with the unconditioned stimulus were looked at longer and more frequently. Studies 1 and 2 tested whether conditioning effects were consistent with predictions from explicit process models that contingency awareness should positively correlate with conditioning effects. Study 2 was more strongly powered to detect this relation and showed that contingency awareness was a significant predictor of conditioning effects, consistent with an explicit mechanism in evaluative conditioning. Results from these studies demonstrate evaluative conditioning of ambivalent stimuli that is not likely due to enhanced attention to affectively congruent features and that is consistent with explicit processing accounts