Distributional Preferences and Competitive Behavior

Loukas Balafoutas, Rudolf Kerschbamer and Matthias Sutter

Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck

Abstract: We study experimentally the relationship between distributional preferences and competitive behavior. We find that spiteful subjects react strongest to competitive pressure and win in a tournament significantly more often than efficiency-minded and inequality averse subjects. However, when given the choice between a tournament and a piece rate scheme, efficiency-minded subjects choose the tournament most often, while spiteful and inequality averse subjects avoid it. When controlling for distributional preferences, risk attitudes and past performance, the gender gap in the willingness to compete is no longer significant, indicating that gender-related variables explain why twice as many men as women self-select into competition.

Keywords: Competition; distributional preferences; gender gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35
Date: 2011-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cse and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Journal Article: Distributional preferences and competitive behavior (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inn:wpaper:2011-04

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