The emergence of male leadership in competitive environments

Ernesto Reuben*, Pedro Rey-Biel, Paola Sapienza, Luigi Zingales

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

84 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present evidence from an experiment in which groups select a leader to compete against the leaders of other groups in a real-effort task that they have all performed in the past. We find that women are selected much less often as leaders than is suggested by their individual past performance. We study three potential explanations for the underrepresentation of women, namely, gender differences in overconfidence concerning past performance, in the willingness to exaggerate past performance to the group, and in the reaction to monetary incentives. We find that men's overconfidence is the driving force behind the observed prevalence of male representation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)111-117
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume83
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2012

Keywords

  • Discrimination
  • Gender gap
  • Glass ceiling
  • Leadership
  • Overconfidence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

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