Distaste for Minority Bosses: Discrimination from Below and Its Economic Consequences in India

Minorities are underrepresented in enterprise ownership and leadership positions in big firms. Why? This project investigates one potential channel: discrimination against minority employers (bosses) by subordinate workers. Specifically, this paper aims to answer two main research questions: 1) Do the minority employers face discrimination from below in labor markets? How big is this penalty? 2) What are the underlying motivations? What is the extent to which this discrimination is influenced by concern for social approval as opposed to an intrinsic distaste for minority groups? I propose a field experiment to answer these questions in a high-stakes field setting: the market for call center executives in the state of Bihar, India.