IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v53y2014icp131-137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender differences in response to contingent rewards: Evidence from a natural experiment of junior tennis

Author

Listed:
  • Anbarci, Nejat
  • Arin, K. Peren
  • Lee, Jungmin

Abstract

We investigate gender differences in responding to contingent rewards by exploiting a natural experiment in junior tennis tournaments in Florida where the ranking point system was revised to induce more players to play doubles. The new point system increased the points earned from wins in singles matches significantly if the two thirds or more of players in their sex/age group chose to play doubles. We examine three types of potential responses to the new system: (1) a ‘positive’ response of playing doubles more by singles winners, (2) a ‘subversive’ response of playing doubles less by singles losers, and (3) a ‘slack’ response of playing loosely in their doubles matches by singles winners. We find strong evidence on the positive response among boys and top-ranked girls but no evidence for subversive and slack responses.

Suggested Citation

  • Anbarci, Nejat & Arin, K. Peren & Lee, Jungmin, 2014. "Gender differences in response to contingent rewards: Evidence from a natural experiment of junior tennis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 131-137.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:53:y:2014:i:c:p:131-137
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2014.09.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804314000986
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2014.09.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cawley, John & Frisvold, David & Meyerhoefer, Chad, 2013. "The impact of physical education on obesity among elementary school children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 743-755.
    2. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2000. "Pay Enough or Don't Pay at All," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 791-810.
    3. Booth, Alison & Nolen, Patrick, 2012. "Choosing to compete: How different are girls and boys?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 542-555.
    4. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    5. James, Harvey Jr., 2005. "Why did you do that? An economic examination of the effect of extrinsic compensation on intrinsic motivation and performance," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 549-566, August.
    6. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    7. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2004. "Gender and Competition at a Young Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 377-381, May.
    8. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    9. Stanley M. Atkinson & Samantha Boyce Baird & Melissa B. Frye, 2003. "Do Female Mutual Fund Managers Manage Differently?," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 26(1), pages 1-18, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. S. Cotton, Christopher & Li, Cheng & McIntyre, Frank & P. Price, Joseph, 2015. "Which explanations for gender differences in competition are consistent with a simple theoretical model?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 56-67.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cueva, Carlos & Rustichini, Aldo, 2015. "Is financial instability male-driven? Gender and cognitive skills in experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 330-344.
    2. Migheli, Matteo, 2010. "Gender at work: Productivity and incentives," POLIS Working Papers 142, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    3. Mario Daniele Amore & Orsola Garofalo & Alessandro Minichilli, 2014. "Gender Interactions Within the Family Firm," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(5), pages 1083-1097, May.
    4. Balafoutas, Loukas & Sutter, Matthias, 2019. "How uncertainty and ambiguity in tournaments affect gender differences in competitive behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 1-13.
    5. Eber, Nicolas & François, Abel & Weill, Laurent, 2021. "Gender, age, and attitude toward competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 668-690.
    6. Czibor, Eszter & Claussen, Jörg & van Praag, Mirjam, 2019. "Women in a men’s world: Risk taking in an online card game community," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 62-89.
    7. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    8. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Kübler, Dorothea, 2011. "Gender differences in team work and team competition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 797-808.
    9. Mario Lackner, 2021. "Gender differences in competitiveness," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 236-236, November.
    10. Brandts, Jordi & Garofalo, Orsola, 2012. "Gender pairings and accountability effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 31-41.
    11. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    12. José De Sousa & Guillaume Hollard, 2023. "From Micro to Macro Gender Differences: Evidence from Field Tournaments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3358-3399, June.
    13. Bernd Frick & Clarissa Laura Maria Spiess Bru & Daniel Kaimann, 2023. "Are Women (Really) More Lenient? Gender Differences in Expert Evaluations," Working Papers Dissertations 106, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    14. Hogarth, Robin M. & Karelaia, Natalia & Trujillo, Carlos Andrés, 2012. "When should I quit? Gender differences in exiting competitions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 136-150.
    15. Osorio, António (António Miguel), 2019. "Gender differences in competition: gender equality and cost reduction policies," Working Papers 2072/351587, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    16. Steffen Andersen & Seda Ertac & Uri Gneezy & John A. List & Sandra Maximiano, 2013. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Socialization at a Young Age: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1438-1443, October.
    17. Louis-Philippe Morin, 2015. "Do Men and Women Respond Differently to Competition? Evidence from a Major Education Reform," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 443-491.
    18. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur & Joeri Sol & Willem Verbeke, 2013. "Tournament Incentives in the Field: Gender Differences in the Workplace," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 305-326.
    19. Anat Bracha & Chaim Fershtman, 2013. "Competitive Incentives: Working Harder or Working Smarter?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 771-781, April.
    20. Jeffrey Flory & Uri Gneezy & Kenneth Leonard & John List, 2012. "Sex, competitiveness, and investment in offspring: On the origin of preferences," Artefactual Field Experiments 00072, The Field Experiments Website.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender differences; Contingent rewards; Incentive; Motivation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:53:y:2014:i:c:p:131-137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.