Gender differences in competitiveness in a stated-effort all-pay auction entry experiment

Last registered on September 13, 2023

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Gender differences in competitiveness in a stated-effort all-pay auction entry experiment

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0011930

Initial registration date

August 14, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

August 16, 2023, 11:19 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

September 13, 2023, 1:06 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

United States of America

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Gahye Jeon

Affiliation

Georgia State University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2023-08-28

End date

2023-09-25

Keywords

Behavior, Gender, Lab

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

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 extends the existing literature by examining the gender gap in competitiveness facing a stated-effort task rather than a real-effort task. The objective is to test the gender gap in entry decisions in an induced-value environment where heterogeneous beliefs about relative abilities can be held constant across subjects. I develop an entry experiment with complete information common value all-pay auction corresponding to the winner-take-all real-effort tournament environment. In this auction, the subject with the highest effort wins and receives the prize but all efforts are sunk. Using all-pay auction theory, I develop equilibrium predictions on the effect of competitiveness and risk aversion on entry and bidding decisions. Empirically, I control for the effects of risk aversion with a unique set of within-subject lottery treatments in which subjects face a randomizing computer opponent rather than a human opponent.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Jeon, Gahye. 2023. "Gender differences in competitiveness in a stated-effort all-pay auction entry experiment." AEA RCT Registry. September 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11930-1.1

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2023-09-04

Intervention End Date

2023-09-18

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Stated-effort tournament entry decisions against other participants

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Stated-effort tournament entry decisions against randomizing computers

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
I aim to test whether the gender gap in competitive entry persists when subjects face a stated-effort task rather than a real-effort task. I develop an entry experiment with complete information common value all-pay auction corresponding to the winner-take-all real-effort tournament environment in Niederle and Vesterlund (2007). I control for the effect of risk aversion with a unique set of within-subject lottery treatments in which subjects face a randomizing computer opponent rather than a human opponent.

Experimental Design Details
The first task is a risk preference elicitation using a variation of Eckel and Grossman's (2008) gamble selection task.

The second task is the auction task which follows the tournament entry design of Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) using a stated-effort auction. In round one, participants compete against a subject opponent in a complete information two-player common value all-pay auction. In this auction, the subject with the highest effort wins and receives the prize but all efforts are sunk. In round two, participants can choose between exiting or entering the auction. If participants choose to exit, they receive a fixed endowment and continue the experiment. If participants choose to enter, they bid against a subject opponent’s already submitted bid in round one. In round three, participants compete against a uniformly randomizing computer opponent in a complete information two-player common value all-pay auction. In round four, participants can choose between exiting or entering the auction. If participants choose to exit, they receive a fixed endowment and continue the experiment. If participants choose to enter, they bid against a computer opponent.

Finally, participants go through a survey that includes gender, additional demographics, qualitative measures of competitiveness, and risk preferences following previous literature (Buser et al., 2021; Buser & Oosterbeek, 2023), and a survey on beliefs and expectations.

An overview of the experiment is given below. There are two treatments that differ in the order of the set of auction tasks.
Treatment 1:
1. Risk elicitation
2. Round 1: All-pay auction
3. Round 2: Choice between all-pay auction and fixed endowment
4. Round 3: All-pay lottery
5. Round 4: Choice between all-pay lottery and fixed endowment
6. Survey

Treatment 2:
1. Risk elicitation
2. Round 1: All-pay lottery
3. Round 2: Choice between all-pay lottery and fixed endowment
4. Round 3: All-pay auction
5. Round 4: Choice between all-pay auction and fixed endowment
6. Survey

References:
Buser, Thomas, Niederle, Muriel, & Oosterbeek, Hessel. (2021). Can competitiveness predict
education and labor market outcomes? Evidence from incentivized choice and survey measures.
NBER Working Paper.
Buser, Thomas and Oosterbeek, Hessel, The Anatomy of Competitiveness. IZA Discussion Paper No. 16224, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4475579 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4475579
Eckel, Catherine C., & Grossman, Philip J. (2008). Forecasting risk attitudes: An experimental
study using actual and forecast gamble choices. Journal of Economic Behavior and
Organization, 68(1), 1–17.
Niederle, Muriel, & Vesterlund, Lise. (2007). Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men
Compete Too Much? The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 1067–1101.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done by the computer.

Randomization Unit

Treatments are randomized across-session.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

200 estimated subjects

Sample size: planned number of observations

160 estimated subjects. 80 women and 80 men.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

80 estimated subjects per treatment.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Assuming a significance level of 5% and a desired power of 80%, the optimal sample size to detect a mean gender difference in entry choice is 52 (x2) based on the results of Niederle and Vesterlund (2007). However, accounting for disparities in the experimental design, the proposed sample size for this study is 80 (x2).

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB