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Gender Differences in Performance in Competitive Environments: Evidence from Professional Tennis Players

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Author Info

  • Paserman, Daniele

    () (Boston University)

Abstract

This paper uses data from nine tennis Grand Slam tournaments played between 2005 and 2007 to assess whether men and women respond differently to competitive pressure in a setting with large monetary rewards. In particular, it asks whether the quality of the game deteriorates as the stakes become higher. The paper conducts two parallel analyses, one based on aggregate set-level data, and one based on detailed point-by-point data, which is available for a selected subsample of matches in four of the nine tournaments under examination. The set-level analysis indicates that both men and women perform less well in the final and decisive set of the match. This result is robust to controls for the length of the match and to the inclusion of match and player-specific fixed effects. The drop in performance of women in the decisive set is slightly larger than that of men, but the difference is not statistically significant at conventional levels. On the other hand, the detailed point-by-point analysis reveals that, relative to men, women are substantially more likely to make unforced errors at crucial junctures of the match. Data on serve speed, on first serve percentages and on rally length suggest that women play a more conservative and less aggressive strategy as points become more important. I present a simple game-theoretic model that shows that a less aggressive strategy may be a player’s best response to an increase in the intrinsic probability of making unforced errors.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 2834.

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Length: 61 pages
Date of creation: Jun 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2834

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Keywords: gender differences; performance under pressure; tennis;

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References

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  1. Alan Manning & Farzad Saidi, 2008. "Understanding the Gender Pay Gap: What's Competition Got to Do with It?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0898, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  2. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-90, April.
  3. Sunde, Uwe, 2003. "Potential, Prizes and Performance: Testing Tournament Theory with Professional Tennis Data," IZA Discussion Papers 947, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  4. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2005. "Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Do Men Compete too Much?," Discussion Papers 04-030, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
  5. Booth, Alison L. & Nolen, Patrick, 2009. "Choosing to Compete: How different are girls and boys?," CEPR Discussion Papers 7214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  6. Klaassen F. J G M & Magnus J. R., 2001. "Are Points in Tennis Independent and Identically Distributed? Evidence From a Dynamic Binary Panel Data Model," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 500-509, June.
  7. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2004. "Gender and Competition at a Young Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 377-381, May.
  8. Dohmen, Thomas, 2005. "Do Professionals Choke Under Pressure?," IZA Discussion Papers 1905, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  9. Marianne Bertrand & Kevin F. Hallock, 2000. "The Gender Gap in Top Corporate Jobs," NBER Working Papers 7931, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2004. "Gender and competition at a young age," Framed Field Experiments 00151, The Field Experiments Website.
  11. Dan Ariely & Uri Gneezy & George Loewenstein & Nina Mazar, 2005. "Large stakes and big mistakes," Working Papers 05-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
  12. repec:feb:framed:0027 is not listed on IDEAS
  13. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance In Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074, August.
  14. Victor Lavy, 2004. "Do Gender Stereotypes Reduce Girls' Human Capital Outcomes? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," NBER Working Papers 10678, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Gender & decision-making
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2009-08-03 13:53:53
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Cited by:
  1. Bertrand, Marianne, 2011. "New Perspectives on Gender," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier.
  2. Gagliarducci, Stefano & Paserman, Daniele, 2009. "Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena," IZA Discussion Papers 4128, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Alan Manning & Farzad Saidi, 2008. "Understanding the Gender Pay Gap: What's Competition Got to Do with It?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0898, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  4. Victor Lavy, 2008. "Gender Differences in Market Competitiveness in a Real Workplace: Evidence from Performance-based Pay Tournaments among Teachers," NBER Working Papers 14338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Olga Shurchkov, 2009. "Gender Differences in Output Quality and Quantity under Competition and Time Constraints: Evidence from a Pilot Study," Working Papers 2009.95, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
  6. Frick, Bernd, 2011. "Gender differences in competitiveness: Empirical evidence from professional distance running," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 389-398, June.
  7. Christos Genakos & Mario Pagliero, 2009. "Risk Taking and Performance in Multistage Tournaments: Evidence from Weightlifting Competitions," CEP Discussion Papers dp0928, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

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