IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/doi10.1086-704616.html

Knowing When to Ask: The Cost of Leaning In

Author

Listed:
  • Christine L. Exley
  • Muriel Niederle
  • Lise Vesterlund

Abstract

Women’s reluctance to negotiate is often used to explain the gender wage gap, popularizing the push for women to “lean in” and negotiate more. Examining an environment in which women achieve positive profits when they choose to negotiate, we find that increased negotiations are not helpful. Women know when to ask: they enter negotiations resulting in positive profits and avoid negotiations resulting in negative profits. While the findings are similar for men, we find no evidence that men are more adept than women at knowing when to ask. Thus, our results caution against a greater push for women to negotiate.

Suggested Citation

  • Christine L. Exley & Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2020. "Knowing When to Ask: The Cost of Leaning In," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(3), pages 816-854.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/704616
    DOI: 10.1086/704616
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/704616
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/704616
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/704616?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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    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:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/704616. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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.