Male and Female Competitive Behavior - Experimental Evidence
GATE Working Paper No. W.P.05-12
38 Pages Posted: 7 Jun 2006 Last revised: 10 May 2010
There are 2 versions of this paper
Male and Female Competitive Behavior - Experimental Evidence
Male and Female Competitive Behavior: Experimental Evidence
Date Written: November 1, 2005
Abstract
Male and female choices differ in many economic situations, e.g., on the labor market. This paper considers whether such differences are driven by different attitudes towards competition. In our experiment subjects choose between a tournament and a piece-rate pay scheme before performing a real task. Men choose the tournament significantly more often than women. Women are mainly influenced by their degree of risk aversion, but men are not. Men compete more against men than against women, but compete against women who are thought to compete. The behavior of men seems primarily to be influenced by social norms whose nature and origin we discuss.
Keywords: competition, experiment, gender, piece rater, relative ability, risk aversion, tournament
JEL Classification: C70, C91, J16, J24, J31, M52
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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