IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v174y2019icp195-199.html

Gender effects in the credence goods market: An experimental study

Author

Listed:
  • Agrawal, Anjali
  • Green, Ellen P.
  • Lavergne, Lisa

Abstract

In this paper, we offer further explanation for differences in earnings across genders. We investigate difference in preferences in payment systems for credence goods. We find that women were no less likely to select variable rate payment schemes as compensation for providing credence goods than men. However, overall earnings remained higher for men than for women. Disaggregating behavior by type of payment and gender reveals that women who chose fee-for-service provided significantly fewer units of services paid for than men who chose fee-for-service. This difference accounts for the lower overall earnings for women in our experiments.

Suggested Citation

  • Agrawal, Anjali & Green, Ellen P. & Lavergne, Lisa, 2019. "Gender effects in the credence goods market: An experimental study," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 195-199.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:174:y:2019:i:c:p:195-199
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.11.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176518304774
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2018.11.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Riener, Gerhard & Wagner, Valentin, 2017. "Shying away from demanding tasks? Experimental evidence on gender differences in answering multiple-choice questions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 43-62.
    2. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    3. Green, Ellen P., 2014. "Payment systems in the healthcare industry: An experimental study of physician incentives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 367-378.
    4. Loukas Balafoutas & Adrian Beck & Rudolf Kerschbamer & Matthias Sutter, 2013. "What Drives Taxi Drivers? A Field Experiment on Fraud in a Market for Credence Goods," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 876-891.
    5. Winand Emons, 1997. "Credence Goods and Fraudelent Experts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(1), pages 107-119, Spring.
    6. Mimra, Wanda & Rasch, Alexander & Waibel, Christian, 2016. "Price competition and reputation in credence goods markets: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 337-352.
    7. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    8. Rudolf Kerschbamer & Matthias Sutter, 2017. "The Economics of Credence Goods – a Survey of Recent Lab and Field Experiments," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 63(1), pages 1-23.
    9. Dinky Daruvala, 2007. "Gender, risk and stereotypes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 265-283, December.
    10. Alan Manning & Farzad Saidi, 2010. "Understanding the Gender Pay Gap: What's Competition Got to Do with it?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 63(4), pages 681-698, July.
    11. Antonio Filippin, 2022. "Gender differences in risk attitudes," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 100-100, October.
    12. Bjorn Bartling & Ernst Fehr & Michel Andre Marechal & Daniel Schunk, 2009. "Egalitarianism and Competitiveness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 93-98, May.
    13. Antonio Filippin & Paolo Crosetto, 2016. "A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3138-3160, November.
    14. Ertac, Seda & Gurdal, Mehmet Y., 2012. "Deciding to decide: Gender, leadership and risk-taking in groups," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 24-30.
    15. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    16. Uwe Dulleck & Rudolf Kerschbamer & Matthias Sutter, 2011. "The Economics of Credence Goods: An Experiment on the Role of Liability, Verifiability, Reputation, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 526-555, April.
    17. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    18. Bejarano, Hernán & Green, Ellen P. & Rassenti, Stephen, 2017. "Payment scheme self-selection in the credence goods market: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 396-403.
    19. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "Men, Women and Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 113, pages 1061-1073, Elsevier.
    20. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bardey, David & Kembou, Samuel & Ventelou, Bruno, 2021. "Physicians’ incentives to adopt personalised medicine: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 686-713.
    2. Perodaud, Maxime & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Yamada, Takashi, 2022. "An experimental analysis of gender discrimination in a credence goods market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Green, Ellen P. & Kloosterman, Andrew, 2022. "Agent sorting by incentive systems in mission firms: Implications for healthcare and other credence goods markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 408-429.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Perodaud, Maxime & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Yamada, Takashi, 2022. "An experimental analysis of gender discrimination in a credence goods market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Jung, SeEun & Choe, Chung & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2018. "Gender wage gaps and risky vs. secure employment: An experimental analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 112-121.
    3. Della Giusta, Marina & Di Girolamo, Amalia, 2018. "Have your cake and eat it too: real effort and risk aversion in schoolchildren," MPRA Paper 89528, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Catherine Eckel & Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2021. "The gender leadership gap: insights from experiments," Chapters, in: Ananish Chaudhuri (ed.), A Research Agenda for Experimental Economics, chapter 7, pages 137-162, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Masclet, David & Peterle, Emmanuel & Larribeau, Sophie, 2015. "Gender differences in tournament and flat-wage schemes: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 103-115.
    6. Ulf Rinne & Hendrik Sonnabend, 2022. "Female workers, male managers: Gender, leadership, and risk‐taking," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(3), pages 906-930, January.
    7. Anwesha Bandyopadhyay & Lutfunnahar Begum & Philip J. Grossman, 2021. "Gender differences in the stability of risk attitudes," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 169-201, October.
    8. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    9. Oliver Fabel & Sandra Mauser & Yingchao Zhang, 2024. "Performance contests and merit pay with empathic employees," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(1), pages 353-372, January.
    10. Green, Ellen P. & Kloosterman, Andrew, 2022. "Agent sorting by incentive systems in mission firms: Implications for healthcare and other credence goods markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 408-429.
    11. Silvia Saccardo & Aniela Pietrasz & Uri Gneezy, 2018. "On the Size of the Gender Difference in Competitiveness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1541-1554, April.
    12. Müller, Julia & Schwieren, Christiane, 2012. "Can personality explain what is underlying women’s unwillingness to compete?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 448-460.
    13. Filippin, Antonio & Gioia, Francesca, 2018. "Competition and subsequent risk-taking behaviour: Heterogeneity across gender and outcomes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 84-94.
    14. Markowsky, Eva & Beblo, Miriam, 2022. "When do we observe a gender gap in competition entry? A meta-analysis of the experimental literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 139-163.
    15. David Masclet & Emmanuel Peterle & Sophie Larribeau, 2012. "Gender Differences in Competitive and Non Competitive Environments: An Experimental Evidence," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 201236, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    16. Buser, Thomas & Grimalda, Gianluca & Putterman, Louis & van der Weele, Joël, 2020. "Overconfidence and gender gaps in redistributive preferences: Cross-Country experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 267-286.
    17. Schüssler, Katharina, 2018. "The Influence of Overconfidence and Competition Neglect On Entry Into Competition," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 87, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    18. Horn, Dániel & Kiss, Hubert János & Lénárd, Tünde, 2022. "Gender differences in preferences of adolescents: Evidence from a large-scale classroom experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 478-522.
    19. Bertrand, Marianne, 2011. "New Perspectives on Gender," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 17, pages 1543-1590, Elsevier.
    20. Joyce Guo & María P. Recalde, 2023. "Overriding in Teams: The Role of Beliefs, Social Image, and Gender," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 2239-2262, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • I - Health, Education, and Welfare

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:174:y:2019:i:c:p:195-199. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.