Implicit Quotas

Abstract

Employment or admission “goals” are often preferred to affirmative action as a way of obtaining diversity. By constructing a simple model of employer‐auditor interaction, I show that when an auditor has imperfect information regarding employers’ proclivities to discriminate and the fraction of qualified minorities in each employer’s applicant pool, goals are synonymous with quotas. Technically speaking, any equilibrium of the auditing game involves a nonempty set of employers who hire so that they do not trigger an audit by rejecting qualified nonminorities, hiring unqualified minorities, or both. Further, under some assumptions, explicit quotas (those mandated by an auditor) are more efficient than implicit quotas (goals settled on in equilibrium by employers wishing to avoid an audit).