Eva Ranehill
Professor
Are women less effective leaders than men? Evidence from experiments using coordination games
Author
Summary, in English
We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating followers’ actions. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in
persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. In these settings, successful coordination hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader’s capacity to convince followersto pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially selfconfirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, precisely estimating the absence of a gender leadership gap. We further show that this result is surprising given experts’ priors.
persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. In these settings, successful coordination hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader’s capacity to convince followersto pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially selfconfirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, precisely estimating the absence of a gender leadership gap. We further show that this result is surprising given experts’ priors.
Department/s
- Department of Economics
Publishing year
2023
Language
English
Pages
1-46
Publication/Series
Discussion Paper
Issue
472
Document type
Working paper
Topic
- Economics
Keywords
- gender
- coordination games
- leadership
- experiment
- D23
- C72
- C92
- J1
Status
Published