Menstrual Cycle Economics

Un-PC study of the month:

Why Can't a Woman Bid More Like a Man?
Yan Chen Peter Katuscak Emre Ozdenoren
March 15, 2005


We find systematic evidence that demographic characteristics,
especially gender, race and the number of siblings, education
backgrounds, as well as menstrual cycle, significantly affect bidder
behavior in the firstand second-price sealed-bid auction in the
laboratory. In particular, we find that women bid significantly higher
than men in the first-price auction, while the likelihood of dominant
strategy play in the secondprice auction is not different between men
and women. This finding provides support for the hypothesis that risk
attitude rather than cognitive ability is the main driving force for
the gender gap in competitive environments. At a biological level, we
find that, in the first-price auction, during menstruation, when
levels of estrogen and progesterone are the lowest, women do not bid
differently from men. The gender difference in the first-price auction
is driven by women during other phases of the menstrual cycle with
higher levels of estrogen and progesterone.