Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/227457 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 368
Publisher: 
University of Zurich, Department of Economics, Zurich
Abstract: 
We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating action by followers. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. Group performance hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader's capacity to convince followers to pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially self-confirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, identifying a precisely-estimated null effect. We show that this absence of an effect is surprising given experts' priors.
Subjects: 
gender
coordination games
leadership
experiment
JEL: 
D23
C72
C92
J1
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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