Job Reservation and Intergenerational Transmission of Preferences

This paper examines the effects of compensatory-discrimination policies in a caste-based segregated economy where some high-paid positions in a certain industry are reserved for low-caste insiders as a consequence of the implementation of the policies. Cultural attitudes towards preferences for work-loving and leisure-loving traits evolve endogenously. The economy will converge to the efficient (inefficient) equilibrium with larger (smaller) fractions of work lovers among the insider and outsider populations if the profits in the industry with the purview of the reservation policy are sufficiently low (high) or the profits in the industry without the purview of the reservation policy are sufficiently high (low). Changes in the degree of compensatory-discrimination policies will affect the dynamics for insiders and outsiders differently.