Manager Race and the Race of New Hires

Abstract: Using personnel data from a large U.S. retail firm, we examine whether the race of the hiring manager affects the racial composition of new hires. We exploit manager changes at hundreds of stores to estimate models with store fixed effects. We find significant effects of manager race and ethnicity. First, all non-black managers—i.e., whites, Hispanics, and Asians— hire more whites and fewer blacks than do black managers. The differences between non-black and black managers are especially large in the South. Second, in locations with large Hispanic populations, Hispanic managers hire more Hispanics and fewer whites than white managers. Acknowledgments: We are grateful for funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and from the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment. We are also grateful for the generosity of the studied employer in sharing their data and time. For helpful comments and suggestions, we thank David Card