IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1561.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Big-up yourself! The Return to Self-Promotion

Author

Listed:
  • Mavisakalyan, Astghik
  • Palmer, Michael
  • Salazar, Silvia

Abstract

Self-promotion plays a significant role in both the labor market and society; however, its prevalence and effects remain difficult to quantify. This paper leverages the unique setting of professional surfing to examine the causal impact of self-promotion-proxied by the act of "claiming" a wave-on performance outcomes. Utilizing data from over 5,500 waves in the World Surf League and employing an instrumental variables approach, we find that self-promotion provides substantial benefits, increasing wave scores by approximately 0.8 standard deviations, or 1.6 points out of a maximum score of 10. Notably, female surfers are significantly less likely than their male counterparts to engage in self-promotional behaviors, as reflected by a lower ferquency of claiming, yet they receive comparable benefits when they do claim. These findings offer valuable insights into the rewards of self-promotion in competitive, high-stakes environments and underscore the potential for women to improve outcomes by more frequently adopting such behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Mavisakalyan, Astghik & Palmer, Michael & Salazar, Silvia, 2025. "Big-up yourself! The Return to Self-Promotion," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1561, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1561
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/309577/1/GLO-DP-1561.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    2. Christine L. Exley & Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2020. "Knowing When to Ask: The Cost of Leaning In," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(3), pages 816-854.
    3. Emily Oster, 2019. "Unobservable Selection and Coefficient Stability: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 187-204, April.
    4. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2011. "Gender and Competition," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 601-630, September.
    5. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    6. Christine L Exley & Judd B Kessler, 2022. "The Gender Gap in Self-Promotion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(3), pages 1345-1381.
    7. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    8. Isaiah Andrews & James H. Stock & Liyang Sun, 2019. "Weak Instruments in Instrumental Variables Regression: Theory and Practice," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 727-753, August.
    9. Morgulev, Elia & Azar, Ofer H. & Lidor, Ronnie & Sabag, Eran & Bar-Eli, Michael, 2014. "Deception and decision making in professional basketball: Is it beneficial to flop?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 108-118.
    10. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Betts, Alexander & Flinder Stierna, Maria & Omata, Naohiko & Sterck, Olivier, 2023. "Refugees welcome? Inter-group interaction and host community attitude formation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    2. Betts,Alexander Milton Stedman & Stierna,Maria Flinder & Omata,Naohiko & Sterck,Olivier Christian Brigitte, 2022. "Social Cohesion and Refugee-Host Interactions : Evidence from East Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9917, The World Bank.
    3. Burlinson, Andrew & Giulietti, Monica & Law, Cherry & Liu, Hui-Hsuan, 2021. "Fuel poverty and financial distress," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    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. Johnsen, Åshild A. & Finseraas, Henning & Hanson, Torbjørn & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2023. "The malleability of competitive preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Inyoung Chae & Jihyeon Ha & David A. Schweidel, 2023. "Paywall Suspensions and Digital News Subscriptions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 729-745, July.
    7. Michael Babington & Sebastian J. Goerg & Carl Kitchens, 2020. "Do Tournaments With Superstars Encourage or Discourage Competition?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 44-63, January.
    8. Kinnl, Klara & Möller, Jakob & Walter, Anna, 2023. "Borrowed Plumes:: The Gender Gap in Claiming Credit for Teamwork," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 345, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    9. Arora, Varun & Chakravarty, Sujoy & Kapoor, Hansika & Mukherjee, Shagata & Roy, Shubhabrata & Tagat, Anirudh, 2023. "No going back: COVID-19 disease threat perception and male migrants' willingness to return to work in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 533-546.
    10. Kevin Boudreau & Nilam Kaushik, 2020. "The Gender Gap in Tech & Competitive Work Environments? Field Experimental Evidence from an Internet-of-Things Product Development Platform," NBER Working Papers 27154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Anna Katharina Pikos & Alexander Straub, 2020. "Mind the Absent Gap: Gender-Specific Competitive Behavior in Nonprofessional Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(3), pages 215-233, April.
    12. Cattan, Sarah & Kamhöfer, Daniel A. & Karlsson, Martin & Nilsson, Therese, 2017. "The Short- and Long-Term Effects of Student Absence: Evidence from Sweden," IZA Discussion Papers 10995, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Klara Kinnl & Jakob Möller & Anna Walter, 2023. "The Gender Gap in Claiming Credit for Teamwork," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp345, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    14. Almås, Ingvild & Berge, Lars Ivar & Bjorvatn, Kjetil & Somville, Vincent & Tungodden, Bertil, 2020. "Adverse selection into competition: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment in Tanzania," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 19/2020, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    15. Sosson Tadadjeu & Paul Ningaye & Henri Njangang, 2023. "Are natural resources also bad for infrastructure quality?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 1053-1079, August.
    16. Abellán, Miguel, 2023. "Catholics, Protestants and Muslims: Similar work ethics, different social and political ethics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 778-815.
    17. Davillas, Apostolos & Burlinson, Andrew & Liu, Hui-Hsuan, 2022. "Getting warmer: Fuel poverty, objective and subjective health and well-being," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    18. Kinnl, Klara & Möller, Jakob & Walter, Anna, 2023. "Borrowed Plumes: The Gender Gap in Claiming Credit for Teamwork," Department for Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Series 01/2023, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    19. Allison, Lee & Liu, Yu & Murtinu, Samuele & Wei, Zuobao, 2023. "Gender and firm performance around the world: The roles of finance, technology and labor," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    20. Shangkhum, Prompong & Zikos, Vasileios, 2023. "New evidence on the relationship between mental and physical health," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Self-promotion; Performance evaluation; Professional surfing; Gender differences; Instrumental variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z22 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Labor Issues

    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:zbw:glodps:1561. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.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.