Taste for competition and the gender gap among young business professionals

Ernesto Reuben, Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales

No 20190031, Working Papers from New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science

Abstract: We study whether and why taste for competition (as measured by Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007) affects MBA salaries and whether this effect can explain the wage gender gap. At graduation, MBAs with higher taste for competition earn $15K (9.3%) more. Over time this effect is mitigated by overconfidence. Seven years after graduation, competitive MBAs with a low degree of overconfidence earn 26% more, while those who are highly overconfident earn 19% less. Taste for competition explains 10% of the gender gap at graduation and none seven years later.

Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2019-11, Revised 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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