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Home | Courses | Gender and Economics (Not Offered in 2023-24)
Course

Gender and Economics (Not Offered in 2023-24)

  • Teacher(s)
    Anne Boring, Thomas Buser, Chen Li
  • Research field
    Empirical Microeconomics
  • Dates
    Period 1 - Sep 04, 2023 to Oct 27, 2023
  • Course type
    Field
  • Program year
    Second
  • Credits
    3

Course description

Course will not be taught in 2023-2024.

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

Course will not be taught in 2023-2024.

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.