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Pricing competition: a new laboratory measure of gender differences in the willingness to compete

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  • John Ifcher

    (Santa Clara University)

  • Homa Zarghamee

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

Experiments have demonstrated that men are more willing to compete than women. We develop a new instrument to “price” willingness to compete. We find that men value a $2.00 winner-take-all payment significantly more (about $0.28 more) than women; and that women require a premium (about 40 %) to compete. Our new instrument is more sensitive than the traditional binary-choice instrument, and thus, enables us to identify relationships that are not identifiable using the traditional binary-choice instrument. We find that subjects who are the most willing to compete have high ability, higher GPA’s (men), and take more STEM courses (women).

Suggested Citation

  • John Ifcher & Homa Zarghamee, 2016. "Pricing competition: a new laboratory measure of gender differences in the willingness to compete," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(3), pages 642-662, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:19:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s10683-015-9458-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10683-015-9458-8
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    Cited by:

    1. Ifcher, John & Zarghamee, Homa, 2020. "Competitive Preferences among Asians in the U.S," IZA Discussion Papers 13913, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Jung, Seeun & Vranceanu, Radu, 2017. "Experimental estimates of men's and women's willingness to compete: Does the gender of the partner matter?," ESSEC Working Papers WP1701, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    3. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2018. "New method to detect convergence in simple multi-period market games with infinite large strategy spaces," Post-Print halshs-01960900, HAL.
    4. 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.
    5. Douadia Bougherara & Lana Friesen & Céline Nauges, 2021. "Risk Taking with Left- and Right-Skewed Lotteries," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 62(1), pages 89-112, February.
    6. J{o}rgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2020. "Heuristics in experiments with infinitely large strategy spaces," Papers 2005.02337, arXiv.org.
    7. Buser, Thomas & van den Assem, Martijn J. & van Dolder, Dennie, 2023. "Gender and willingness to compete for high stakes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 350-370.
    8. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2018. "New method to detect convergence in simple multi-period market games with infinite large strategy spaces," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 18038, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    9. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2020. "Heuristics in experiments with infinitely large strategy spaces," Post-Print hal-02435934, HAL.
    10. Nancy R. Baldiga & Katherine B. Coffman, 2018. "Laboratory Evidence on the Effects of Sponsorship on the Competitive Preferences of Men and Women," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 888-901, February.
    11. Silvia Saccardo & Aniela Pietrasz & Uri Gneezy, 2018. "On the Size of the Gender Difference in Competitiveness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1541-1554, April.
    12. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2018. "New method to detect convergence in simple multi-period market games with infinite large strategy spaces," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01960900, HAL.
    13. Jung, SeEun & Vranceanu, Radu, 2019. "Competitive compensation and subjective well-being: The effect of culture and gender," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 90-108.
    14. Zahra Murad & Charitini Stavropoulou & Graham Cookson, 2019. "Incentives and gender in a multi-task setting: An experimental study with real-effort tasks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-18, March.
    15. Zhang, Peilu & Zhang, Yinjunjie & Palma, Marco A., 2024. "Social roles and competitiveness: My willingness to compete depends on who I am (supposed to be)," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 125-151.
    16. Jørgen Vitting Andersen & Philippe de Peretti, 2020. "Heuristics in experiments with infinitely large strategy spaces," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-02435934, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Willingness-to-compete; Competitiveness; Gender differences; Relative payoff; Piece-rate equivalents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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