Gender differences in response to big stakes

Ghazala Azmat, Caterina Calsamiglia and Nagore Iriberri

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In the psychology literature, “choking under pressure” refers to a behavioural response to an increase in the stakes. 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 relatively more 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 I21 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2014-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/60607/ Open access version. (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)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:60607

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().