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Willingness to compete : family matters

Almås, Ingvild; Cappelen, Alexander W.; Salvanes, Kjell Gunnar; Sørensen, Erik Ø.; Tungodden, Bertil
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URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/163444
Date
2014-01
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  • Discussion papers (SAM) [578]
Abstract
This paper studies the role of family background in explaining differences in

the willingness to compete. By combining data from a lab experiment conducted

with a representative sample of adolescents in Norway and high quality register

data on family background, we show that family background is fundamental in

two important ways. First, boys from low socioeconomic status families are less

willing to compete than boys from better off families, even when controlling for

confidence, performance, risk preferences, time preferences, social preferences,

and psychological traits. Second, family background is crucial for understanding

the large gender difference in the willingness to compete. Girls are much less

willing to compete than boys among children from better off families, whereas we

do not find any gender difference in willingness to compete among children from

low socioeconomic status families. Our data suggest that the main mechanism

explaining the role of family background is that the father’s socioeconomic status

has a large effect on the boys’ willingness to compete, but no effect on the girls.

We do not find any effect on the willingness to compete for boys or girls of the

mother’s socioeconomic status or other family characteristic that may potentially

shape competition preferences, including parental equality and sibling rivalry.
Publisher
Norwegian School of Economics. Department of Economics
Series
Discussion Papers;03/2014

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