Publications
Publications
- Forthcoming
- Quarterly Journal of Economics
The Gender Gap in Self-Promotion
By: Christine L Exley and Judd B. Kessler
Abstract
In applications, interviews, performance reviews, and many other environments, individuals are explicitly asked or implicitly invited to assess their own performance. In a series of experiments, we find that women rate their performance less favorably than equally performing men. This gender gap in self-promotion is notably persistent. It stays just as strong when we: eliminate gender differences in confidence about performance, eliminate incentives to self-promote, provide information about the average self-promotion of others, and make environments more ambiguous. Because of the prevalence of self-promotion opportunities, this self-promotion gap may contribute to persistent gender gaps in education and labor market outcomes.
Keywords
Citation
Exley, Christine L., and Judd B. Kessler. "The Gender Gap in Self-Promotion." Quarterly Journal of Economics (forthcoming).