Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
Maison des Sciences Humaines
11, Porte des Sciences
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval
Maison des Sciences Humaines (Mezzanine level) University Salle de Conférence DECANAT – N°0.517
3E-seminars@liser.lu
Abstract
Economic research on gender gaps in preferences and economic outcomes has identified gaps with respect to sex—a binary classification as either a “man” or “woman.” We investigate the value of incorporating a continuous measure of self-reported gender identity into economics by exploring whether gender identity correlates with variation in economic decisions and outcomes beyond the explanatory power of binary sex. We validate a novel and simple measure of continuous gender identity (CGI) that correlates with measures used in gender research outside economics. We employ this validated measure in five datasets (N=8,213) measuring several dimensions of economic preferences and educational and labor market outcomes. Our results yield mixed evidence that CGI correlates with economic behaviors and outcomes when accounting for binary sex: CGI has little relationship with incentivized preference measures, but is correlated with a number of unincentivized preference measures and with educational choices and labor market outcomes that are stereotypically associated with females. Our results suggest that incorporating self-reported measures of gender identity may have some value for understanding economic behaviors and for targeting policy.
Authors:
Anne Ardila Brenøe, University of Zurich
Lea Herusen, Humboldt University Berlin
Eva Ranehill, Gothenburg University and Lund University
Roberto A. Weber, University of Zurich
Biography
Roberto Weber is a Professor of the Economics of Corporate Culture, Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, endowed by Credit Suisse, in the Department of Economics at the University of Zürich. He is also the Director of the Zurich Graduate School of Economics. His research and teaching fall primarily within the areas of behavioral and experimental economics, decision making, and the study of organizations and institutions. He has published extensively in the leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Management Science, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of the European Economic Association, and many others.
More about the 3E DTU
The Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) 3E - Experiments, Ethics and Economics - consists of an interdisciplinary consortium of 9 social scientists who use scientific experiments involving human subjects in their research. The objective of the consortium is to create a formal link for collaboration across the three existing social science research laboratories in Luxembourg, with the aim to push forward the state-of-the-art of what we know about human behavior in economic interactions. The DTU 3E gathers members across 5 Luxembourgish research units:
(1) Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research LISER
(2) Institute for Health and Behavior IHB (Faculty of Humanities FLSHASE, University of Luxembourg UL)
(3) Institute of Cognitive Science and Assessment COSA (FLSHASE, UL)
(4) Luxembourg School of Finance LSF (Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance FDEF, UL)
(5) Luxembourg Centre of Logistics LCL (Economics Research Centre CREA, FDEF, UL)
