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Gender Interaction in Teams: Experimental Evidence on Performance and Punishment Behavior

Author

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  • SeEun Jung

    (Inha University)

  • Radu Vranceanu

    (ESSEC Business School and THEMA)

Abstract

This paper reports the results from an experiment where men and women are paired to form a two-member team and asked to execute a counting task. An individual’s payoff is proportional to the joint production of right answers. Participants who perform better than their partner in the task can punish him or her by imposing a fine. We manipulate the pairs’ gender compositions to analyze whether an individual’s performance and sanctioning behavior depend on his or her gender and the gender of his or her partner, which is revealed to the subjects at the beginning of the experiment. The data show that, conditional on underperformance, women are sanctioned more often and more heavily than men; however, if they are sanctioned, men tend to improve their performances, while women’s performances do not change.

Suggested Citation

  • SeEun Jung & Radu Vranceanu, 2017. "Gender Interaction in Teams: Experimental Evidence on Performance and Punishment Behavior," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 33, pages 95-126.
    • Handle: RePEc:kea:keappr:ker-20170630-33-1-04
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Jung, Seeun & Vranceanu, Radu, 2015. "Experimental Evidence on Gender Interaction in Lying Behavior," ESSEC Working Papers WP1514, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School, revised Oct 2015.
    3. Kleinknecht, Janina, 2019. "A man of his word? An experiment on gender differences in promise keeping," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 251-268.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender; Real-effort task; Team production; Performance; Punishment; Discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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