Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Discussion Paper Series in Economics,
Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics
No 2/2020: Competitiveness, gender and handedness: a large- sample intercultural study
Thomas Buser (), Alexander Cappelen (), Uri Gneezy, Moshe Hoffman and Bertil Tungodden ()
Additional contact information
Thomas Buser: University of Amsterdam
Alexander Cappelen: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH, Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway
Uri Gneezy: Rady School of Management, USCD
Moshe Hoffman: MIT and Harvard
Bertil Tungodden: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH, Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway
Abstract: We conduct a large-scale intercultural experiment to elicit competitiveness and ask whether individual and gender differences in competitiveness are partially determined by nature. We use being a “lefty” (i.e., having either a dominant left hand or a dominant left foot) as a proxy for nature, as it is associated with neurological differences which are determined prenatally and reflects a masculinized neurology. That way we use handedness and footedness as a proxy for innate differences. In large-scale data with incentivized choices from 3683 participants from India, Norway and Tanzania, we find a significant gender gap in competitiveness in all cultures. However, we find inconsistent results when comparing the competitiveness of lefties and righties. In northeast India we find that lefties of both genders are significantly more competitive than righties. In Norway we find that lefty men are more competitive than any other group, but women’s competitiveness is not related to handedness or footedness. In Tanzania, we find no effect of handedness or footedness on the competitiveness of either gender. The merged data show weak evidence of a positive correlation between being a lefty and competitiveness for men, but no such evidence for women. Thus, our data do not provide robust evidence that gender differences in competitiveness are partially determined by nature, where nature is represented by the complex, physiologically-rooted phenomenon of handedness.
Keywords: Competitiveness
JEL-codes: A00
21 pages, January 16, 2020
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