Gender Differences in Bargaining Outcomes: A Field Experiment on Discrimination

Marco Castillo, Ragan Petrie (), Maximo Torero () and Lise Vesterlund ()

No 18093, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We examine gender differences in bargaining outcomes in a highly competitive and commonly used market: the taxi market in Lima, Peru. Examining the entire path of negotiation we find that men face higher initial prices and rejection rates. These differentials are consistent with both statistical and taste-based discrimination. To identify the source of the inferior treatment of men we conduct an experiment where passengers send a signal on valuation before negotiating. The signal eliminates gender differences and the response is shown only to be consistent with statistical discrimination. Our study secures identification within the market of interest and demonstrates that there are environments where sophisticated statistical inference is the sole source of differential gender outcomes.

JEL-codes: C78 C93 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-lab and nep-ltv
Date: 2012-05
Note: LS PE
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Related works:
Journal Article: Gender differences in bargaining outcomes: A field experiment on discrimination (2013)
Working Paper: Gender Differences in Bar gaining Outcomes: A Field Experiment on Discrimination (2011)
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