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Home | Courses | Gender and Economics
Course

Gender and Economics

  • Teacher(s)
    Anne Boring, Thomas Buser, Chen Li
  • Research field
    -
  • Dates
    Period 1 - Aug 29, 2022 to Oct 21, 2022
  • Course type
    Field
  • Program year
    Second
  • Credits
    3

Course description

Plenary lectures are planned in the first two weeks. In these sessions, the lecturers will give you an introduction to important topics, methodology, and perspectives in gender and economics.

Lecture 1: covers an overview of recent trends of gender inequalities in the labor market, including the main supply and demand-side barriers to gender equality. This lecture also focuses on the evaluation of recent initiatives by firms to increase the share of women in leadership positions.

Lecture 2: covers gender differences in preferences, personality traits and beliefs

Lecture 3: covers the definition and measurement of stereotype, its dynamics, and its contribution to the on-going gender inequality.

Research proposal:

· You will work on an empirical research proposal.

· Each student writes a pre-analysis plan related to gender and economics.

· Each student will be matched with a supervisor (one of the lecturers).

Individual sessions are planned in week 4 to week 6.

· Every week, each student can have a meeting with the supervisor.

· At least two working days before your meeting, please send your questions and points of discussion to your supervisor.

Deliverables:

· Short proposal in week 3.

· Final presentation in week 7.

  • Each student gives a research presentation.
  • A randomly assigned student discusses each of the presentations (research proposals).
  • General discussions.

· Pre-analysis plan in week 8. It should be a complete pre-analysis plan with

  • a clear definition of research question
  • description of the methodology
  • empirical specifications
  • theoretical predictions of empirical findings

Course literature

Lecture 1: Introduction to gender gaps in the labor market

  • Overview of recent trends
    • Blau, F. D., & Kahn, L. M. (2017). The gender wage gap: Extent, trends, and explanations. Journal of Economic Literature, 55(3), 789-865.
    • Petrongolo, B., & Ronchi, M. (2020). Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets. Labour Economics, 64, 101819.
    • Cortes, P., & Pan, J. (2018). Occupation and gender. The Oxford handbook of women and the economy, 425-452.
    • Goldin, C. (2014). A grand gender convergence: Its last chapter. American Economic Review, 104(4), 1091-1119.


  • The role of firms
    • Azmat, G., & Boring, A. (2020). Gender Diversity in Firms. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 36(4).
    • Kunze, A., & Miller, A. R. (2017). Women helping women? Evidence from private sector data on workplace hierarchies. Review of Economics and Statistics, 99(5), 769-775.


  • Hiring and discrimination
    • Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American Economic Review, 94(4), 991-1013.
    • Goldin, C., & Rouse, C. (2000). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of "blind" auditions on female musicians. American Economic Review, 90(4), 715-741.
    • Kessler, J. B., Low, C., & Sullivan, C. D. (2019). Incentivized resume rating: Eliciting employer preferences without deception. American Economic Review, 109(11), 3713-44.
    • Sarsons, H., Gërxhani, K., Reuben, E., & Schram, A. (2021). Gender differences in recognition for group work. Journal of Political Economy, 129(1).


  • Working hours and the child penalty
    • Adams-Prassl, A. (2020). The Gender Wage Gap on an Online Labour Market: The Cost of Interruptions. Working Paper.
    • Andresen, M. E., & Nix, E. (2019). What causes the child penalty? Evidence from same sex couples and policy reforms (No. 902). Discussion Papers.
    • Azmat, G., Hensvik, L., & Rosenqvist, O. (2020). Workplace presenteeism, job substitutability and gender inequality. Working Paper.
    • Le Barbanchon, T., Rathelot, R., & Roulet, A. (2021). Gender differences in job search: Trading off commute against wage. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 136(1), 381-426.
    • Kleven, H., Landais, C., Posch, J., Steinhauer, A., & Zweimüller, J. (2019). Child penalties across countries: Evidence and explanations. In AEA Papers and Proceedings (Vol. 109, pp. 122-26).


  • Firm culture
    • Cullen, Z. B., & Perez-Truglia, R. (2019). The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap (No. w26530). National Bureau of Economic Research.
    • Folke, O., & Rickne, J. K. (2020). Sexual Harassment and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market.
  • Papers marked in bold are compulsory reading material before lectures.
Lecture 2: Gender differences in preferences, personality traits and beliefs


  • Gender differences in economic preferences and personality traits
    • Alan, Sule, and Seda Ertac. "Mitigating the gender gap in the willingness to compete: Evidence from a randomized field experiment." Journal of the European Economic Association 17, no. 4 (2019): 1147-1185.
    • Balafoutas, Loukas, and Matthias Sutter. "Affirmative action policies promote women and do not harm efficiency in the laboratory." Science 335, no. 6068 (2012): 579-582.
    • Burbano, Vanessa, Nicolas Padilla, and Stephan Meier. "Gender Differences in Preferences for Meaning at Work." (2020).
    • Buser, Thomas, Muriel Niederle, and Hessel Oosterbeek. "Gender, competitiveness, and career choices." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, no. 3 (2014): 1409-1447.
    • Buser, Thomas, Muriel Niederle, and Hessel Oosterbeek. Can competitiveness predict education and labor market outcomes? Evidence from incentivized choice and survey measures. No. w28916. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021.
    • Charness, Gary, and Uri Gneezy. "Strong evidence for gender differences in risk taking." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 83, no. 1 (2012): 50-58.
    • Falk, Armin, and Johannes Hermle. "Relationship of gender differences in preferences to economic development and gender equality." Science 362, no. 6412 (2018).
    • Mueller, Gerrit, and Erik Plug. "Estimating the effect of personality on male and female earnings." ILR Review 60, no. 1 (2006): 3-22.
    • Niederle, Muriel, and Lise Vesterlund. "Do women shy away from competition? Do men compete too much?." The quarterly journal of economics 122, no. 3 (2007): 1067-1101.
  • Gender differences in confidence, belief updating, and performance under pressure
    • Alan, Sule, Seda Ertac, Elif Kubilay, and Gyongyi Loranth. "Understanding gender differences in leadership." The Economic Journal 130, no. 626 (2020): 263-289.
    • Azmat, Ghazala, Caterina Calsamiglia, and Nagore Iriberri. "Gender differences in response to big stakes." Journal of the European Economic Association 14, no. 6 (2016): 1372-1400.
    • Coffman, Katherine Baldiga. "Evidence on self-stereotyping and the contribution of ideas." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, no. 4 (2014): 1625-1660.
    • Leslie, Sarah-Jane, Andrei Cimpian, Meredith Meyer, and Edward Freeland. "Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines." Science 347, no. 6219 (2015): 262-265.
    • Leibbrandt, Andreas, and John A. List. "Do women avoid salary negotiations? Evidence from a large-scale natural field experiment." Management Science 61, no. 9 (2015): 2016-2024.
    • Mobius, Markus M., Muriel Niederle, Paul Niehaus, and Tanya S. Rosenblat. Managing self-confidence: Theory and experimental evidence. No. w17014. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011.
    • Ors, Evren, Frédéric Palomino, and Eloic Peyrache. "Performance gender gap: does competition matter?." Journal of Labor Economics 31, no. 3 (2013): 443-499.
Lecture 3: Introduction to stereotypes and gendered beliefs


  • Definitions of stereotypes
    • Stereotypes: Bordalo, P., Coffman, K., Gennaioli, N., & Shleifer, A. (2016). Stereotypes. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(4), 1753-1794.
    • IAT: Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: the implicit association test. Journal of personality and social psychology, 74(6), 1464.
    • Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), 573-598.


  • Measurement of stereotypes and gendered beliefs
    • Bordalo, P., Coffman, K., Gennaioli, N., & Shleifer, A. (2019). Beliefs about gender. American Economic Review, 109(3), 739-73.
    • Baillon, A., Huang, Z., Selim, A., & Wakker, P. P. (2018). Measuring ambiguity attitudes for all (natural) events. Econometrica, 86(5), 1839-1858.


  • Dynamics of stereotypes
    • Bohren, J. A., Imas, A., & Rosenberg, M. (2019). The dynamics of discrimination: Theory and evidence. American economic review, 109(10), 3395-3436.
    • Coffman, K., Collis, M., & Kulkarni, L. (2019). Stereotypes and belief updating. Harvard Business School.
    • Sarsons, H. (2017). Interpreting signals in the labor market: evidence from medical referrals. Job Market Paper.
    • Mengel, F., & Campos Mercade, P. (2021). Irrational Statistical Discrimination. Available at SSRN 3843579.


  • Impact of stereotypes on discrimination
    • Coffman, K. B., Exley, C. L., & Niederle, M. (2021). The role of beliefs in driving gender discrimination. Management Science.
    • Babcock, L., Recalde, M. P., Vesterlund, L., & Weingart, L. (2017). Gender differences in accepting and receiving requests for tasks with low promotability. American Economic Review, 107(3), 714-47.


Papers marked in bold are compulsory reading material before lectures.