Aging and Attitudes Towards Strategic Uncertainty and Competition: An Artefactual Field Experiment in a Swiss Bank

Thierry Madiès (), Marie Claire Villeval and Malgorzata Wasmer ()
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Thierry Madiès: University of Fribourg, Bd de Pérolles 90, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland

No 1217, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: We study the attitudes of junior and senior employees towards strategic uncertainty and competition, by means of a market entry game inspired by Camerer and Lovallo (1999). Seniors exhibit higher entry rates compared to juniors, especially when earnings depend on relative performance. This difference persists after controlling for attitudes towards non-strategic uncertainty and for beliefs on others’ competitiveness and ability. Social image matters, as evidenced by the fact that seniors enter more when they predict others enter more and when they are matched with a majority of juniors. This contradicts the stereotype of risk averse and less competitive older employees.

Keywords: Aging; risk; ambiguity; competitiveness; self-image; confidence; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 J14 J24 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hrm and nep-upt
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Related works:
Working Paper: Aging and Attitudes Towards Strategic Uncertainty and Competition: An Artefactual Field Experiment in a Swiss Bank (2012)
Working Paper: Aging and Attitudes Towards Strategic Uncertainty and Competition: An Artefactual Field Experiment in a Swiss Bank (2012)
Working Paper: Aging and attitudes towards strategic uncertainty and competition: An artefactual field experiment in a Swiss bank (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:1217

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