IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nad/wpaper/20220078.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring Preferences for Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Lina Lozano
  • Ernesto Reuben

    (Division of Social Science)

Abstract

Recent research has found that competitive behavior measured in experiments strongly predicts individual differences in educational and labor market outcomes. However, there is no consensus on the underlying factors behind competitive behavior in these experiments. Are participants who compete more capable, more confident, and more tolerant of risk, or are they competing because they enjoy competition per se? In this study, we present an experiment designed to measure individuals’ preferences for competition. Compared to previous work, our experiment rules out risk preferences by design, measures beliefs more precisely, and allows us to measure the magnitude of preferences for competition. In addition, we collect multiple decisions per participant, which lets us evaluate the impact of noisy decision-making. We find strong evidence that many individuals possess preferences for competition. Most participants are either reliably competition-seeking or competition averse, and their choices are highly consistent with expected utility maximization. We also find that preferences for competition depend on the number of competitors but not on the participants’ gender.

Suggested Citation

  • Lina Lozano & Ernesto Reuben, 2022. "Measuring Preferences for Competition," Working Papers 20220078, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Aug 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:nad:wpaper:20220078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://nyuad.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyuad/academics/divisions/social-science/working-papers/2022/0078.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2022
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman & Tomas Jagelka & Tim Kautz, 2019. "Some Contributions of Economics to the Study of Personality," Working Papers 2019-069, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    2. Stefan T. Trautmann & Gijs Kuilen, 2015. "Belief Elicitation: A Horse Race among Truth Serums," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(589), pages 2116-2135, December.
    3. Ernesto Reuben & Matthew Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2017. "Preferences and Biases in Educational Choices and Labour Market Expectations: Shrinking the Black Box of Gender," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(604), pages 2153-2186, September.
    4. Booth, Alison & Nolen, Patrick, 2012. "Choosing to compete: How different are girls and boys?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 542-555.
    5. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    6. Ben Gillen & Erik Snowberg & Leeat Yariv, 2019. "Experimenting with Measurement Error: Techniques with Applications to the Caltech Cohort Study," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1826-1863.
    7. Muriel Niederle, 2017. "A Gender Agenda: A Progress Report on Competitiveness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 115-119, May.
    8. Edi Karni, 2009. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 603-606, March.
    9. Tanjim Hossain & Ryo Okui, 2013. "The Binarized Scoring Rule," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(3), pages 984-1001.
    10. Simon Gächter & Elke Renner, 2010. "The effects of (incentivized) belief elicitation in public goods experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(3), pages 364-377, September.
    11. Thomas Buser & Noemi Peter & Stefan C. Wolter, 2017. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Study Choices in High School: Evidence from Switzerland," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 125-130, May.
    12. Thomas Buser & Muriel Niederle & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2020. "Can competitiveness predict education and labor market outcomes? Evidence from incentivized choice and survey measures," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-048/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Fallucchi, Francesco & Nosenzo, Daniele & Reuben, Ernesto, 2020. "Measuring preferences for competition with experimentally-validated survey questions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 402-423.
    14. Aurelie Dariel & Curtis Kephart & Nikos Nikiforakis & Christina Zenker, 2017. "Emirati women do not shy away from competition: evidence from a patriarchal society in transition," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 121-136, December.
    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. Kamas, Linda & Preston, Anne, 2018. "Competing with confidence: The ticket to labor market success for college-educated women," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 231-252.
    17. Wang, Stephanie W., 2011. "Incentive effects: The case of belief elicitation from individuals in groups," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 30-33, April.
    18. Kevin J. Boudreau & Nicola Lacetera & Karim R. Lakhani, 2011. "Incentives and Problem Uncertainty in Innovation Contests: An Empirical Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 843-863, May.
    19. 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.
    20. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    21. 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.
    22. van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2022. "Gender Differences in Tournament Choices: Risk Preferences, Overconfidence or Competitiveness?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 1595-1618.
    23. David Danz & Lise Vesterlund & Alistair J. Wilson, 2022. "Belief Elicitation and Behavioral Incentive Compatibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(9), pages 2851-2883, September.
    24. Berge, Lars Ivar Oppedal & Bjorvatn, Kjetil & Garcia Pires, Armando Jose & Tungodden, Bertil, 2015. "Competitive in the lab, successful in the field?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 303-317.
    25. Ernesto Reuben & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2019. "Taste for competition and the gender gap among young business professionals," Working Papers 20190031, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Nov 2019.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. No title
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2022-09-20 20:27:25

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Lambrecht, Marco & Oechssler, Joerg, 2023. "Do women shy away from risky skill games?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 241-250.

    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. Fallucchi, Francesco & Nosenzo, Daniele & Reuben, Ernesto, 2020. "Measuring preferences for competition with experimentally-validated survey questions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 402-423.
    2. 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.
    3. Helena Fornwagner & Monika Pompeo & Nina Serdarevic, 2020. "Him or her? Choosing competition on behalf of someone else," Discussion Papers 2020-13, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    4. Almås, Ingvild & Berge, Lars Ivar & Bjorvatn, Kjetil & Somville, Vincent & Tungodden, Bertil, 2020. "Adverse selection into competition: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment in Tanzania," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 19/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    5. Helena Fornwagner & Monika Pompeo & Nina Serdarevic, 2023. "Choosing Competition on Behalf of Someone Else," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1555-1574, March.
    6. Demiral, Elif E. & Mollerstrom, Johanna, 2024. "Competitiveness and Employability," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    7. Thomas Buser & Noemi Peter & Stefan C. Wolter, 2022. "Willingness to compete, gender and career choices along the whole ability distribution," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(5), pages 1299-1326, November.
    8. Charness, Gary & Dao, Lien & Shurchkov, Olga, 2022. "Competing now and then: The effects of delay on competitiveness across gender," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 612-630.
    9. Buser, Thomas & Ranehill, Eva & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2021. "Gender differences in willingness to compete: The role of public observability," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    10. Kessel, Dany & Mollerstrom, Johanna & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2021. "Can simple advice eliminate the gender gap in willingness to compete?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 138, pages 1-1.
    11. Johnsen, Åshild A. & Finseraas, Henning & Hanson, Torbjørn & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2023. "The malleability of competitive preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    12. Lüthi, Samuel & Wolter, Stefan C., 2023. "Is being competitive always an advantage? Competitiveness, gender, and labour market success," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    13. Valeria Maggian & Ludovica Spinola, 2024. "Spillover effects of cooperative behaviour when switching tasks: the role of gender," Working Papers 2024: 09, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    14. Klinowski, David, 2019. "Selection into self-improvement and competition pay: Gender, stereotypes, and earnings volatility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 128-146.
    15. Balafoutas, Loukas & Sutter, Matthias, 2019. "How uncertainty and ambiguity in tournaments affect gender differences in competitive behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 1-13.
    16. Buser, Thomas & Cappelen, Alexander & Tungodden, Bertil, 2021. "Fairness and Willingness to Compete," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 8/2021, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    17. Halladay, Brianna & Landsman, Rachel, 2022. "Perception matters: The role of task gender stereotype on confidence and tournament selection," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 35-43.
    18. Haeckl, Simone, 2022. "Image concerns in ex-ante self-assessments–Gender differences and behavioral consequences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    19. Boring, Anne & Brown, Jennifer, 2024. "Gender and choices in higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    20. Thomas Buser & Noemi Peter & Stefan Wolter, 2017. "Gender, willingness to compete and career choices along the whole ability distribution," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0135, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nad:wpaper:20220078. 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: Alizeh Batra (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecnyuae.html .

    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.