The Emergence of Male Leadership in Competitive Environments

Ernesto Reuben, Pedro Rey-Biel, Paola Sapienza () and Luigi Zingales ()

No 5300, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We present evidence from an experiment in which groups select a leader to compete against the leaders of other groups in a real-effort task that they have all performed in the past. We find that women are selected much less often as leaders than is suggested by their individual past performance. We study three potential explanations for the underrepresentation of women, namely, gender differences in overconfidence concerning past performance, in the willingness to exaggerate past performance to the group, and in the reaction to monetary incentives. We find that men’s overconfidence is the driving force behind the observed prevalence of male representation.

Keywords: overconfidence; discrimination; gender gap; glass ceiling; leadership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D03 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2010-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2012, 83 (1), 111-117

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Journal Article: The emergence of male leadership in competitive environments (2012)
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