IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chu/wpaper/16-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender Biases in Delegation

Author

Listed:
  • Eleonora Bottino

    (ING Direct Madrid, Spain)

  • Teresa García-Muñoz

    (Campus la Cartuja s/n, E-18011 Granada, Spain)

  • Praveen Kujal

    (Middlesex University and Economic Science Institute, Chapman University)

Abstract

We explore gender biases towards delegation in a modified (delegation) dictator game. Under compulsory delegation and no (gender) revelation no significant gender differences are observed for choices made by principals. Male agents share little with the recipients, meanwhile, female (agents) are not responsive to the incentive scheme and return less to the dictator. However, a clear dichotomy in female behavior is observed under gender revelation. As principals, females behave similar to their male counterparts and appoint as agents those who return more to them. On the other hand, as agents’ females show greater redistributive concerns relative to their male counterparts in the early periods even though it is detrimental to them over time. This results in both male and female principals delegating more to male agents over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Eleonora Bottino & Teresa García-Muñoz & Praveen Kujal, 2016. "Gender Biases in Delegation," Working Papers 16-22, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:chu:wpaper:16-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.chapman.edu/research-and-institutions/economic-science-institute/_files/WorkingPapers/delegation-gender-2016.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rutström, E. Elisabet & Wilcox, Nathaniel T., 2009. "Stated beliefs versus inferred beliefs: A methodological inquiry and experimental test," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 616-632, November.
    2. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    3. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    4. Björn Bartling & Urs Fischbacher, 2012. "Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 67-87.
    5. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "The relative price of fairness: gender differences in a punishment game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 143-158, August.
    6. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    7. 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.
    8. Bolton, Gary E. & Katok, Elena, 1998. "An experimental test of the crowding out hypothesis: The nature of beneficent behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 315-331, November.
    9. Philip J. Grossman & Mana Komai, 2008. "Leadership and Gender: An Experiment," Working Papers 2008-4, Saint Cloud State University, Department of Economics.
    10. Fernando Aguiar & Pablo Brañas-Garza & Ramón Cobo-Reyes & Natalia Jimenez & Luis Miller, 2009. "Are women expected to be more generous?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(1), pages 93-98, March.
    11. Booth, Alison L. & Francesconi, Marco & Frank, Jeff, 2003. "A sticky floors model of promotion, pay, and gender," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 295-322, April.
    12. 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.
    13. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    14. Lucas C. Coffman, 2011. "Intermediation Reduces Punishment (and Reward)," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 77-106, November.
    15. McKelvey, Richard D & Page, Talbot, 1990. "Public and Private Information: An Experimental Study of Information Pooling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1321-1339, November.
    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. Ezquerra, Lara & Kujal, Praveen, 2020. "Self-selecting into being a dictator: Distributional consequences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Helena Fornwagner & Monika Pompeo & Nina Serdarevic, 2020. "Him or her? Choosing competition on behalf of someone else," Discussion Papers 2020-13, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    3. Helena Fornwagner & Monika Pompeo & Nina Serdarevic, 2023. "Choosing Competition on Behalf of Someone Else," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1555-1574, March.

    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. Jiabin Wu, 2018. "Indirect higher order beliefs and cooperation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(4), pages 858-876, December.
    2. Roman Inderst & Kiryl Khalmetski & Axel Ockenfels, 2019. "Sharing Guilt: How Better Access to Information May Backfire," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 3322-3336, July.
    3. García-Gallego, Aurora & Georgantzís, Nikolaos & Jaramillo-Gutiérrez, Ainhoa, 2012. "Gender differences in ultimatum games: Despite rather than due to risk attitudes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 42-49.
    4. Zachary Grossman, 2014. "Strategic Ignorance and the Robustness of Social Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2659-2665, November.
    5. 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.
    6. Bartling Björn & Grieder Manuel & Zehnder Christian, 2014. "Does competition justify inequality?," ECON - Working Papers 158, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Nov 2015.
    7. Cason, Timothy N. & Gangadharan, Lata & Grossman, Philip J., 2022. "Gender, beliefs, and coordination with externalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    8. Bartling, Björn & Grieder, Manuel & Zehnder, Christian, 2017. "Competitive pricing reduces wasteful counterproductive behaviors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 34-47.
    9. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    10. Gary Charness & Ramón Cobo-Reyes & Juan A. Lacomba & Francisco Lagos & Jose Maria Perez, 2016. "Social comparisons in wage delegation: experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 433-459, June.
    11. Behnk, Sascha & Hao, Li & Reuben, Ernesto, 2022. "Shifting normative beliefs: On why groups behave more antisocially than individuals," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    12. Robert Böhm & Tobias Regner, 2013. "Charitable giving among females and males: an empirical test of the competitive altruism hypothesis," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 251-267, October.
    13. Dato, Simon & Nieken, Petra, 2014. "Gender differences in competition and sabotage," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 64-80.
    14. M. Fernanda Rivas, 2013. "An Experiment On Corruption And Gender," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 10-42, January.
    15. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Distributional preferences and competitive behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 125-135.
    16. Antinyan, Armenak & Corazzini, Luca & D'Agostino, Elena & Pavesi, Filippo, 2023. "Watch your words: An experimental study on communication and the opportunity cost of delegation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 216-232.
    17. Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde & Hromek, Kristijan & Kleinknecht, Janina & Ludwig, Sandra, 2023. "Reciprocal reactions to (in)transparent task assignments: An experimental investigation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    18. 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.
    19. Steffen Andersen & John Fountain & Glenn Harrison & E. Rutström, 2014. "Estimating subjective probabilities," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 207-229, June.
    20. Tobias Regner & Gerhard Riener, 2011. "Motivational Cherry Picking," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-029, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dictator game; delegation; gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:chu:wpaper:16-22. 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: Megan Luetje (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esichus.html .

    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.