Experimental estimates of men's and women's willingness to compete: Does the gender of the partner matter?

Seeun Jung (1) , Radu Vranceanu (2)

1 Inha University
2 ESSEC Business School and THEMA (UMR 8184)

In a classical experiment, Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) used the dichotomous choice of individuals between a piece rate and a tournament payment scheme as an indication of their propensity to compete. This paper reports results from a two person interaction of a similar type to analyze whether the preference for competition is dependent on the gender of the partner. It introduces a Becker–DeGroot–Marschak mechanism to elicit individual willingness to compete (WTC), defined as the amount of money that makes an individual indifferent between the two compensation schemes. Even when controlling for risk aversion, past performance and overconfidence, the male WTC is e3.30 larger than the female WTC. The WTC instrument allows for a more precise analysis of the impact of the partner's gender on the taste for competition.

Mots clés: BDM mechanism; Willingness-to-compete; Experiments; Gender effect

Domaines: Psychologie; Economies et finances

Seeun Jung, Radu Vranceanu. Experimental estimates of men's and women's willingness to compete: Does the gender of the partner matter?. 2017. ⟨hal-01457226⟩