Performance Gender-Gap: Does Competition Matter?

Evren Örs, Frédéric Palomino and Eloïc Peyrache

No 6891, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Using data from a natural experiment with high payoffs in education, we examine whether the competitive nature of tournament structure explains the performance gender-gap. We find that performance is statistically lower for women, the variance of performance is higher for men, and the tails of the performance distribution are significantly fatter for men. For the same participants in non-competitive settings with similar academic content, the performance of women first-order-stochastically dominates that of men. We reject differences in risk aversion and ability as reasons for performance gender-gap.

Keywords: gender-gap; relative-performance evaluation; tournament (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I29 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Date: Written 2008-06

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