Competitiveness, selection bias and gender differences among economics majors

Abstract

Evidence from behavioral experiments with volunteer samples suggests that there exists a substantial gap in the willingness of men and women to compete. We ask whether a similar gap can be found in a population of economics majors – a population of interest as questions loom regarding the reasons for the underrepresentation of women in economics. We find a substantial gender gap in competitiveness – as well as in risk attitudes – among economics majors. We also find that self-selection into the lab causes us to overestimate this gap among volunteers by a factor of 2 to 3 depending on the econometric model.