Gender differences in bargaining outcomes: A field experiment on discrimination

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

Journal of Public Economics, 2013, vol. 99, issue C, 35-48

Abstract: Relying on a commonly used fixed-offer bargaining script we examine gender differences in bargaining outcomes in a highly competitive and frequently used market: the taxi market in Lima, Peru. Our bargaining script secures that only the seller can change prices and terminate negotiations, thus we are able to examine differences in the seller's entire path of negotiation and in the reservation price at which they are willing to trade. We find that male and female passengers who use the same bargaining script are not treated equally. Men face higher initial prices, final prices, and rejection rates. These differences are consistent with male drivers being more reluctant to give-in to demanding negotiations by male passengers, and with male passengers being perceived as having high valuations. To identify whether taste-based or statistical discrimination drives 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. Thus in the limiting case of a highly competitive market with experienced traders, we do not find evidence of taste-based discrimination, the differential observed is however consistent with statistical discrimination.

Keywords: Bargaining; Discrimination; Statistical inference; Gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 C93 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (97)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272713000042
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Gender Differences in Bargaining Outcomes: A Field Experiment on Discrimination (2012)
Working Paper: Gender Differences in Bar gaining Outcomes: A Field Experiment on Discrimination (2011)
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:eee:pubeco:v:99:y:2013:i:c:p:35-48

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.12.006

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().