Which Explanations For Gender Differences In Competition Are Consistent With A Simple Theoretical Model?

Cheng Li, Christopher Cotton, Frank McIntyre and Joseph Price
Additional contact information
Frank McIntyre: Rutgers University

No 1342, Working Paper from Economics Department, Queen's University

Abstract: A number of recent studies show that males may increase their performance by more than females in response to competitive incentives. The literature suggests that such a male competitive advantage may contribute to observed gender gaps in labor force pay and achievement. Understanding which factors may be driving these gender differences is essential for designing policies that promote quality. Using a game theoretic model of contests, we consider a variety of explanations for the male competitive advantage that have been proposed in the empirical and experimental literature. Comparing the testable predictions of the model with the empirical evidence from past papers, we reject explanations involving male over-confidence, misperceptions about relative ability, and some types of preference differences. Explanations involving female under-confidence and differences in risk aversion are consistent with the significant evidence. Two explanations provide perfect matches to observed performance patterns: (i) males are better than females at handling competitive pressure, and (ii) males enjoy competition more or have greater desire to win than females.

Keywords: contests; gender differences; competitive incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 J16 J24 J78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2015-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econ.queensu.ca/sites/econ.queensu.ca/files/qed_wp_1342.pdf First version 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Which explanations for gender differences in competition are consistent with a simple theoretical model? (2015)
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:qed:wpaper:1342

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper from Economics Department, Queen's University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Babcock (babcockm@queensu.ca).