Fondazione GRINS
Growing Resilient,
Inclusive and Sustainable
Galleria Ugo Bassi 1, 40121, Bologna, IT
C.F/P.IVA 91451720378
Finanziato dal Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), Missione 4 (Infrastruttura e ricerca), Componente 2 (Dalla Ricerca all’Impresa), Investimento 1.3 (Partnership Estese), Tematica 9 (Sostenibilità economica e finanziaria di sistemi e territori).
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Many real-world choices involve explore–exploit decisions: balancing the search for better opportunities against securing a possibly suboptimal outcome. Do gendered approaches to these decisions exist? We study this question in a pre-registered laboratory experiment with 419 participants (∼ 50% female). Behaviour is observed under a piece-rate scheme and a tournament setting. Participants complete three tasks: (i) the Grain Game (explore–exploit) in two otherwise identical environments—one with gains only and one with gains and losses; (ii) an incentivized risk-elicitation task (BRET); and (iii) a loss-aversion task, followed by a questionnaire eliciting individual characteristics and beliefs. We show that, when losses are not possible (gains only), women place a higher value on information and explore more than men (consistent with over-exploration); once losses are possible (gains and losses) and the cost of deviating from exploitation rises, gender differences in exploration disappear. Competition per se does not induce exploration, and the raw gender gap in competitive entry is accounted for by incentivized controls for beliefs/self-confidence. Move-level regressions show adjustment margins: men reduce exploration after realized negative payoffs (threshold response), whereas women reduce exploration at the treatment level when losses are possible. Overall, our evidence indicates an information-seeking mechanism that drives exploration when downside risk is not possible but is muted when losses become possible, whereas cross-gender differences in information processing and use persist, yielding distinct choice dynamics.
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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU, in the framework of the GRINS - Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable project (GRINS PE00000018). The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, nor can the European Union be held responsible for them.
We express our sincere gratitude to the participants of the IDEE meeting at the University of Bologna, the 2022 European ESA Meeting in Bologna, and the seminar attendees at the University of Bath (UK) for their insightful comments and suggestions. We are grateful to Valeria Maggian and Michal Krawczyk for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the paper. We are particularly thankful to Stephanie Heger, Maria Bigoni, Alice Guerra, and Eva Ranheli for their invaluable feedback, and to Alycia Chin, Charley M. Wu, and Azzurra Ruggeri for their generosity in sharing their data and code. Our thanks also go to Riccardo Ghioni for his outstanding research assistance with the experiment code. This research received financial support from the PRIN project “Advancing Gender Equality through Experiments: New Developments and Applications (AGEENDA)” (CUP P2022R248L 002). Elisa Orlandi gratefully acknowledges additional f inancial support from the “Next (Second) Generation EU” programme, acronym Next2EU, within the GRINS project, SPOKE 3– “Households’ sustainability” (CUP UNISA D43C24002040006). All remaining errors are our own. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for them.
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