Muriel Niederle

Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences

Even though the provision of equal opportunities for men and women has been a priority in many countries, large gender differences prevail in competitive high-ranking positions. Suggested explanations include discrimination and differences in preferences and human capital. In this paper we present experimental evidence in support of an additional factor: women may be less effective than men in competitive environments, even if they are able to perform similarly in non-competitive environments. In a laboratory experiment we observe, as we increase the competitiveness of the environment, a significant increase in performance for men, but not for women. This results in a significant gender gap in performance in tournaments, while there is no gap when participants are paid according to piece rate. This effect is stronger when women have to compete against men than in single-sex competitive environments: this suggests that women may be able to perform in competitive environments per se.

How Costly Is Diversity? Affirmative Action in Light of Gender Differences in Competitiveness

Affirmative action is often criticized for causing reverse discrimination and lowering the qualifications of those hired under the policy. However, the magnitude of such adverse effects depends on whether the best suited candidate is hired absent the policy. Indeed affirmative action may compensate for the distortion discrimination imposes on the selection of candidates. This paper asks whether affirmative action can have a similar corrective impact when qualified individuals fail to apply for a job. We evaluate the effect of introducing a gender quota in an environment where high-performing women fail to enter competitions they can win. We show that guaranteeing women equal representation among winners increases their entry. The response exceeds that predicted by the change in probability of winning and is in part driven by women being more willing to compete against other women. The consequences are substantial as the boost in supply essentially eliminates the anticipated costs of the policy. This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.

Unraveling Reduces Mobility in a Labor Market: Gastroenterology with and without a Centralized Match

The entry‐level market for American gastroenterologists was organized by a centralized clearinghouse from 1986 to 1996. Before, and since, it has been conducted via a decentralized market in which appointment dates have unraveled to well over a year before the start of employment. We find that, both before and after the years in which the centralized clearinghouse was used, gastroenterologists are less mobile and more likely to be employed at the same hospital in which they were internal medicine residents than when the clearinghouse was in use. This suggests that the clearinghouse not only coordinates the timing of appointments but also increases the scope of the market, compared to a decentralized market with early appointments.

Managing Self-Confidence: Theory and Experimental Evidence

Evidence from social psychology suggests that agents process information about their own ability in a biased manner. This evidence has motivated exciting research in behavioral economics, but also garnered critics who point out that it is potentially consistent with standard Bayesian updating. We implement a direct experimental test. We study a large sample of 656 undergraduate students, tracking the evolution of their beliefs about their own relative performance on an IQ test as they receive noisy feedback from a known data-generating process. Our design lets us repeatedly measure the complete relevant belief distribution incentive-compatibly. We find that subjects (1) place approximately full weight on their priors, but (2) are asymmetric, over-weighting positive feedback relative to negative, and (3) conservative, updating too little in response to both positive and negative signals. These biases are substantially less pronounced in a placebo experiment where ego is not at stake. We also find that (4) a substantial portion of subjects are averse to receiving information about their ability, and that (5) less confident subjects are more likely to be averse. We unify these phenomena by showing that they all arise naturally in a simple model of optimally biased Bayesian information processing.

Gender Differences in Competition

Negotiating in a highly competitive environment may prove particularly challenging for women.We describe three experimental studies that investigated and documented differences in the competitive behaviors of men and women.The first study examined gender differences in competitive performances. In a setting in which men and women performed at similar levels in single-sex competitions, men were found to outperform women in mixed-sex competitions. The second study focused on the decision of men and women to enter a competition. In a mixed-sex setting in which we found no gender differences in performance, many more men than women chose a compensation scheme in which they had to compete against others. Finally, we report the results of a recent study that examined an institutional intervention that may encourage more women to compete. Specifically, we found that a quota-like affirmative action environment in which women must be equally represented encourages many more women to compete. This response was greater than one would predict based solely on the increase in one’s chances of winning and can be partially explained by the fact that the affirmative action competition was more gender specific.

Can Relaxation of Beliefs Rationalize the Winner's Curse?: An Experimental Study

We use a second-price common-value auction, called the maximal game, to experimentally study whether the winners curse (WC) can be explained by models which retain best-response behavior but allow for inconsistent beliefs. We compare behavior in a regular version of the maximal game, where the WC can be explained by inconsistent beliefs, to behavior in versions where such explanations are less plausible. We find little evidence of differences in behavior. Overall, our study casts a serious doubt on theories that posit the WC is driven by beliefs. Copyright 2010 The Econometric Society.

Propose with a Rose? Signaling in Internet Dating Markets

Abstract A growing number of papers theoretically study the effects of introducing a preference signaling mechanism. However, the empirical literature has had difficulty proving a basic tenet, namely that an agent has more success when the agent uses a signal. This paper provides evidence based on a field experiment in an online dating market. Participants are randomly endowed with two or eight “virtual roses” that a participant can use for free to signal special interest when asking for a date. Our results show that, by sending a rose, a person can substantially increase the chance of the offer being accepted, and this positive effect is neither because the rose attracts attention from recipients nor because the rose is associated with unobserved quality. Furthermore, we find evidence that roses increase the total number of dates, instead of crowding out offers without roses attached. Despite the positive effect of sending roses, a substantial fraction of participants do not fully utilize their endowment of roses and even those who exhaust their endowment on average do not properly use their roses to maximize their dating success.

Unraveling Results from Comparable Demand and Supply: An Experimental Investigation

Markets sometimes unravel, with offers becoming inefficiently early. Often this is attributed to competition arising from an imbalance of demand and supply, typically excess demand for workers. However this presents a puzzle, since unraveling can only occur when firms are willing to make early offers and workers are willing to accept them. We present a model and experiment in which workers’ quality becomes known only in the late part of the market. However, in equilibrium, matching can occur (inefficiently) early only when there is comparable demand and supply: a surplus of applicants, but a shortage of high quality applicants.

Current state of fellowship hiring: Is a universal match necessary? Is it possible?

Currently, approximately 90% of the 620 graduating orthopaedic residents in the United States are planning on entering a postgraduate fellowship. Since January 2005, two of the largest fellowship match programs, sports medicine and spine surgery, were dissolved by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) because of a gradual decline in participation, leaving approximately 70% of applicants in a nonmatching, decentralized system. This leaves hand, shoulder and elbow surgery, and foot and ankle as the only three orthopaedic subspecialties that remain in some type of match program, creating an extremely complicated hiring environment for all residents. This paper focuses on the current state of fellowship employment and hiring in orthopaedic surgery in the United States, on the likely effects of reinstituting a match, and on how this might be accomplished. For this purpose, we present the results of surveys of fellowship directors and residents that we conducted and we describe how the present market for orthopaedic surgery fellows resembles the market for medical *This report is based on a symposium presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Association on June 13, 2007, in Asheville, North Carolina.

AOA Symposium: Current State of Fellowship Hiring

Currently, approximately 90% of the 620 graduating orthopaedic residents in the United States are planning on entering a postgraduate fellowship. Since January 2005, two of the largest fellowship match programs, sports medicine and spine surgery, were dissolved by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) because of a gradual decline in participation, leaving approximately 70% of applicants in a nonmatching, decentralized system. This leaves hand, shoulder and elbow surgery, and foot and ankle as the only three orthopaedic subspecialties that remain in some type of match program, creating an extremely complicated hiring environment for all residents. This paper focuses on the current state of fellowship employment and hiring in orthopaedic surgery in the United States, on the likely effects of reinstituting a match, and on how this might be accomplished. For this purpose, we present the results of surveys of fellowship directors and residents that we conducted and we describe how the present market for orthopaedic surgery fellows resembles the market for medical *This report is based on a symposium presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Association on June 13, 2007, in Asheville, North Carolina.