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Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?

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  • Muriel Niederle
  • Lise Vesterlund

Abstract

We examine whether men and women of the same ability differ in their selection into a competitive environment. Participants in a laboratory experiment solve a real task, first under a noncompetitive piece rate and then a competitive tournament incentive scheme. Although there are no gender differences in performance, men select the tournament twice as much as women when choosing their compensation scheme for the next performance. While 73 percent of the men select the tournament, only 35 percent of the women make this choice. This gender gap in tournament entry is not explained by performance, and factors such as risk and feedback aversion only playa negligible role. Instead, the tournament-entry gap is driven by men being more overconfident and by gender differences in preferences for performing in a competition. The result is that women shy away from competition and men embrace it.

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  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:122:y:2007:i:3:p:1067-1101.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/qjec.122.3.1067
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    JEL classification:

    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments

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