We test the hypothesis that strategic interactions foster overconfidence. We experimentally compare an environment where players have an incentive to overstate their own ability to deter competitors, with one where this incentive is removed. We find that overconfidence persists in the former...

We validate experimentally a new survey item to measure the preference for competition. The item, which measures participants' agreement with the statement "Competition brings the best out of me", predicts individuals' willingness to compete in the laboratory after controlling for their ability,...

We validate experimentally a new survey item to measure the preference for competition. The item, which measures participants' agreement with the statement "Competition brings the best out of me", predicts individuals' willingness to compete in the laboratory after controlling for their ability,...

If agents are exposed to continual competitive pressure, how does a short-term variation of the severity of the competition affect agents' performance? In a real-effort laboratory experiment, we study a one-time increase in incentives in a sequence of equally incentivized contests. Our results...

Laboratory experiments involving a real effort task are conducted to examine the importance of gender differences in competition aversion for generating gender wage gaps. Cross-subject design treatment and control experiments suggest that gender differences in risk aversion play no significant...

Experimental results from student and other non-representative convenience samples often suggest that men, on average, are more risk taking and competitive than women. We explore whether these gender preference gaps also exist in incentivized tasks in a simple random sample of the Swedish adult...

As a recent literature has demonstrated, men and women differ in their willingness to sort into competitive environments. In particular, men are more willing than women to compete. We investigate whether it is possible to reduce the gender gap in willingness to compete through an information...

In the stylized design of Niederle and Vesterlund (2007), subjects choose between a piece-rate and a tournament scheme after performing under both schemes. We examine whether the well-replicated gender difference in competitiveness elicited using this design may be influenced by the visceral...

How does differences in the competitive inclination of ethnic groups contribute to economic disparity and how does the ethnic composition of a group affect competitive inclinations of individuals from different ethnicities? We experimentally investigate how ethnic composition affects the...

Laboratory experiments involving a real effort task are conducted to examine the importance of gender differences in competition aversion for generating gender wage gaps. Cross-subject design treatment and control experiments suggest that gender differences in risk aversion play no significant...