Working Papers

"Gender Differences in the Influence of Competitiveness on Individual and Partner Incomes” (with David Ong) - Job Market Paper - draft available upon request 

Earlier title: “Is Women’s Competitiveness Expressed through their Husband’s Income?”

We extend prior research on gender differences in competitiveness by distinguishing the role of competitiveness on individual and partner incomes. Using a 2017-2021 representative household survey in the Netherlands, we find that competitiveness positively correlates with the present and future incomes for single and partnered women and partnered men, but not for single men. Interestingly, competitive women tend to match with higher-earning men, but the reverse pattern, where competitive men match with higher-earning women, is not observed. We employ 2017 income as a proxy for unobservable individual and couple-specific factors on 2018-2021 incomes. Regarding individual’s own competitiveness, only single men's competitiveness increases their future income. For couples, we find that it is the men's female partner’s competitiveness, rather than their own, that significantly increases men's future income. Contrary to household specialization as the channel, women’s competitiveness does not increase their partner's work hours. Men's competitiveness has no effect on their female partners' income. Our findings offer fresh insights into the influence of competitiveness on individual and household incomes.

"Gender Differences in Competitiveness in a Stated-effort Tournament Entry Experiment"- Job Market Paper

Women are significantly less willing to enter tournaments than men. However, the conditions under which such gender differences persist remain an open and ongoing question. This paper contributes by testing gender differences in competitiveness facing an induced-value stated-effort tournament where relative task productivities can be made common knowledge and held constant across subjects. We develop a simple model of tournament entry that incorporates two competitiveness factors, utility from competition and utility of winning, allowing for distinct competitiveness across the two stages of competition, prior to entry and post entry. Women do not enter competition more than men. However, women spend significantly higher efforts than men, regardless of exogenous or endogenous entry, but only against other human participants. The experiment confirms several equilibrium predictions. First, risk preferences affect entry decisions but not effort decisions. Second, higher efforts are associated with higher entry. Third, beliefs about opponent’s risk tolerance is positively correlated with efforts. These results are particularly strong when we control for behaviors in the computer opponent control. Our findings are consistent with women having a lower utility from competition but a higher utility of winning, presenting a possible divergence in competitiveness across the two stages of competition, at the extensive and intensive margins.

"The Gender Difference in Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium Play" (with David Ong)

The mixed strategy Nash equilibrium (MNE) is a well-established concept in theory, but empirical and experimental support has been hampered by the need for a large sample size for across-subject choices and serial correlation for within-subject choices. We overcome these difficulties in testing for MNE play by exploiting a previously developed comparative statics effect for a common value pairwise all-pay auction which, strikingly, predicts that bids increase on perceived opponent’s risk tolerance, but not on the bidder’s own. Men bid as predicted, but women’s bids respond neither to their own nor to the opponent’s risk tolerance. Additionally, while the significance of men’s response to their beliefs about their opponent’s risk tolerance increases with the absence of mistakes on a pre-experiment quiz, women’s lack of response is unaffected by their quiz performance. These results are consistent with a prior finding of a gender difference in MNE play with a large sample of professional tennis players. We contribute by showing that MNE play can be tested with an ordinary sample of subjects in a laboratory setting. We show a gender difference in a factor that is likely crucial in most competitive situations: perceptions of the opponent’s risk tolerance.

"Is Female Competitiveness in the Labor and Marriage Markets Influenced by Gender Role Attitudes?" (with David Ong) - draft available upon request

Abundant empirical evidence shows a gender wage gap in favor of men across countries and time periods. Evidence of women’s lower competitiveness, based on a lower willingness to compete in laboratory labor experiments, has been proposed as a contributing factor to this gender wage gap. However, because of the traditional division of labor within households, women's competitiveness may not be expressed only in their own labor market performance. Rather, their competitiveness may also be expressed in the labor market performance of their spouse. We surveyed top graduate business students in China for their level of traditional gender identity (GI) and subjective expectations about their own and future spouse’s salary, work hours, and fertility. We use an all-pay auction experiment to derive a measure of competitiveness from the revealed psychological value of winning. Women anticipate a higher-earning spouse. Their competitiveness and GI increase their expected spousal wage gap. The effect of competitiveness on their own work hours depends on their GI: competitiveness increases own expected work hours for low-GI women GI but decreases for high-GI women. Furthermore, we show that anticipated fertility does not by itself decrease women’s labor supply, as might be expected based on prior studies, but only for women with high GI. Thus, GI and competitiveness are potential moderating factors of subjective expectations that anticipate the gender wage gap ex-ante to labor and marriage market outcomes.