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Pricing competition: a new laboratory measure of gender differences in the willingness to compete

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  • John Ifcher

    (Santa Clara University)

  • Homa Zarghamee

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

Experiments have demonstrated that men are more willing to compete than women. We develop a new instrument to “price” willingness to compete. We find that men value a $2.00 winner-take-all payment significantly more (about $0.28 more) than women; and that women require a premium (about 40 %) to compete. Our new instrument is more sensitive than the traditional binary-choice instrument, and thus, enables us to identify relationships that are not identifiable using the traditional binary-choice instrument. We find that subjects who are the most willing to compete have high ability, higher GPA’s (men), and take more STEM courses (women).

Suggested Citation

  • John Ifcher & Homa Zarghamee, 2016. "Pricing competition: a new laboratory measure of gender differences in the willingness to compete," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 642-662, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:19:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s10683-015-9458-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10683-015-9458-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Ifcher, John & Zarghamee, Homa, 2020. "Competitive Preferences among Asians in the U.S," IZA Discussion Papers 13913, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Eber, Nicolas & François, Abel & Weill, Laurent, 2021. "Gender, age, and attitude toward competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 668-690.
    3. Jung, Seeun & Vranceanu, Radu, 2017. "Experimental estimates of men's and women's willingness to compete: Does the gender of the partner matter?," ESSEC Working Papers WP1701, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    4. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2018. "New method to detect convergence in simple multi-period market games with infinite large strategy spaces," Post-Print halshs-01960900, HAL.
    5. Douadia Bougherara & Lana Friesen & Céline Nauges, 2021. "Risk Taking with Left- and Right-Skewed Lotteries," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 62(1), pages 89-112, February.
    6. J{o}rgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2020. "Heuristics in experiments with infinitely large strategy spaces," Papers 2005.02337, arXiv.org.
    7. 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.
    8. Katherine Coffman & Nancy Baldiga, 2018. "Laboratory Evidence on the Effects of Sponsorship on the Competitive Preferences of Men and Women," Working Papers 1815, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    9. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2018. "New method to detect convergence in simple multi-period market games with infinite large strategy spaces," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01960900, HAL.
    10. Jung, SeEun & Vranceanu, Radu, 2019. "Competitive compensation and subjective well-being: The effect of culture and gender," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 90-108.
    11. Buser, Thomas & van den Assem, Martijn J. & van Dolder, Dennie, 2023. "Gender and willingness to compete for high stakes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 350-370.
    12. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2018. "New method to detect convergence in simple multi-period market games with infinite large strategy spaces," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 18038, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    13. Zahra Murad & Charitini Stavropoulou & Graham Cookson, 2019. "Incentives and gender in a multi-task setting: An experimental study with real-effort tasks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-18, March.
    14. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2020. "Heuristics in experiments with infinitely large strategy spaces," Post-Print hal-02435934, HAL.
    15. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2020. "Heuristics in experiments with infinitely large strategy spaces," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-02435934, HAL.
    16. Nancy R. Baldiga & Katherine B. Coffman, 2018. "Laboratory Evidence on the Effects of Sponsorship on the Competitive Preferences of Men and Women," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 888-901, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Willingness-to-compete; Competitiveness; Gender differences; Relative payoff; Piece-rate equivalents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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