Gender Differences in Response to Big Stakes

Ghazala Azmat, Caterina Calsamiglia and Nagore Iriberri

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: It is commonly perceived that increasing incentives improves performance. However, the reaction to increased incentives might differ between men and women, leading to gender differences in performance. In a natural experiment, we study the gender difference in performance resulting from changes in stakes. We use detailed information on the performance of high-school students and exploit the variation in the stakes of tests, which range from 5% to 27% of the final grade. We find that female students outperform male students in all tests—but to a relatively larger degree when the stakes are low. The gender gap disappears in tests taken at the end of high school, which count for 50% of the university entry grade.

Keywords: Stakes; gender gaps; performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C30 D03 I21 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1314.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSE TO BIG STAKES (2016)
Journal Article: Gender Differences in Response to Big Stakes (2016)
Working Paper: Gender differences in response to big stakes (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1314

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