SSRN-Choices About Competition: Differences by Gender and Hormonal Fluctuations, and the Role of Relative Performance Feedback by David Wozniak, William Harbaugh, Ulrich Mayr

There is a fairly large disagreement on the degree of differences in investments and other financial decisions based on risk. Many of the earlier studies showing females are more risk averse and less competitive are being brought into question when newer studies control for income, or life expectancy, etc. Here is a similar one that does so by adding a feedback loop that helps to reduce overconfidence:

SSRN-Choices About Competition: Differences by Gender and Hormonal Fluctuations, and the Role of Relative Performance Feedback by David Wozniak, William Harbaugh, Ulrich Mayr:

In experiments, women are less likely than men to choose competitive compensation mechanisms, such as tournaments. We replicate this result and show that giving feedback about relative performance makes high ability females more likely to compete, makes low ability men less likely to compete, and makes the gender difference insignificant. We then use between and within-subjects differences to show that, without relative performance feedback, women in the low-hormone phase of their menstrual cycle are less likely to enter tournaments than at other times. Relative performance feedback also eliminates these effects."

HT to WayneMarr.