When Harry Fired Sally: The Double Standard in Punishing Misconduct
研究发现金融咨询行业中女性因不当行为被解雇的可能性比男性高20%，再就业难度高30%，尽管其不当行为成本低20%且再犯率更低，且该差距在女性管理者比例高的公司消失。
We examine gender differences in misconduct punishment in the financial advisory industry. We find evidence of a “gender punishment gap”: following an incident of misconduct, female advisers are 20% more likely to lose their jobs and 30% less likely to find new jobs relative to male advisers. Females face harsher outcomes despite engaging in misconduct that is 20% less costly and having a substantially lower propensity towards repeat offenses. The gender punishment gap in hiring and firing dissipates at firms with a greater percentage of female managers at the firm or local branch level. The gender punishment gap is not driven by gender differences in occupation (type of job, firm, market, or financial products handled), productivity, misconduct, or recidivism. We extend our analysis to explore the differential treatment of ethnic minority men and find similar patterns of “in-group” tolerance. Our evidence is inconsistent with a simple Bayesian model with profit maximizing firms and suggests instead that managers are more forgiving of missteps among members of their own gender/ethnic group.