A number of recent studies show that males may increase their performance by more than females in response to competitive incentives. The literature suggests that such a male competitive advantage may contribute to observed gender gaps in labor force pay and achievement. Understanding which...

This paper illustrates the problems that arise with traditional tests for the hot hand and proposes instead using a consistent dynamic panel data estimator, which corrects for these problems and is easy to implement. Applying this estimator to a large dataset of amateur, youth golfers, we find...

There is ongoing interest in determining what predicts that a person will file bankruptcy. Past research has pointed to both a variety of acute shocks immediately before filing and the presence of substantial debt as risk factors for filing bankruptcy. We provide evidence on both fronts by using...

This paper develops a model of workers choosing legal or illegal employment, where legality is defined as abiding by the minimum wage and participating in a set of payroll taxes and mandated non-wage benefits. Alternatively, agents may opt to be legally or illegally self-employed. Enforcement of...

Using data from multiple-period math competitions, we show that males outperform females of similar ability during the first period. However, the male advantage is not found in any subsequent period of competition, or even after a two-week break from competition. Some evidence suggests that...

The literature shows that males react more favorably than females to competitive incentives. This well known result, however, is based on experiments in which participants engage in only a one-shot contest. We conduct a series of math contests in elementary schools which are similar to past...