We show that women in the NLSY79 and NLSY97 are less likely than men to receive competitive compensation. The portion of the gender wage gap explained by compensation schemes is small in the NLSY79 but somewhat larger in the NLSY97.

Evidence that women are less likely to opt into competitive compensation schemes in the laboratory has generated speculation that a gender difference in competitiveness contributes to the gender wage gap. Using data from the NLSY79 and NLSY97, we show that women are less likely to be employed in...

Modeling the incentive effects of competitions among employees for promotions or financial rewards, economists have largely ignored the effects of competition on effort provision once the competition is finished. In a laboratory experiment, we examine how competition outcomes affect the...

The author considers how locus of control—the degree to which one believes one’s actions influence outcomes—is related to an unemployed person’s job search. He finds evidence that “internal†job seekers (who believe their actions determine outcomes) set...

Auctions are often used to sell idiosyncratic goods difficult for potential bidders to value ex ante. Laboratory auctions with uncertainty over final values in this experiment resulted in 18% and 27% of bids above the expected value of the item in private-value first-price and English auctions,...

We investigate the role personality plays in Finitely Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma (FRPD) games. Even after controlling for demographic factors such as race, course of study, and cognitive ability, we find that cooperative behavior is significantly related to the Big Five personality trait...

This paper examines whether a subject's decisions in the ultimatum game played for multiple periods using the strategy method are affected by his or her partner's gender. We find that although there are some initial gender influences on behavior, these do not persist as subject behavior is...

We ask whether employer learning in the wage-setting process depends on skill type and skill importance to productivity, using measures of seven premarket skills and data for each skill’s importance to occupation-specific productivity. Before incorporating importance measures, we find...

We demonstrate that empirical evidence of employer learning is sensitive to how one defines the career start date and, in turn, measures cumulative work experience. Arcidiacono, Bayer, and Hizmo (2010) find evidence of employer learning for high school graduates but not for college graduates,...