Economic research on gender largely focuses on biological sex, the binary classification as either a “man” or “woman.” We investigate the value of incorporating a measure of continuous gender identity (CGI) into economics by exploring whether it explains variation in economic preferences and behavior, beyond the explanatory power of binary sex. First, we validate a novel single-item CGI measure in a survey study, showing that it correlates with measures used in gender research. Second, we use our single-item CGI measure in an incentivized laboratory experiment to assess CGI’s power in explaining previously documented gender gaps in four important economic preferences.

Social comparisons are known to increase individual work morale, but because they could foster competition, they may also negatively impact how well co-workers work together. This paper uses a novel experiment to explore this potential tradeoff. The experiment varies whether members of a reference group receive relative performance information on a knowledge task and measures how this affects the willingness to subsequently help the productivity of others by sharing knowledge with them. The findings reveal that relative performance information spurs competition between members of a reference group when compared to the baseline with no such information. Yet, there is no evidence that relative performance information substantially lowers group morale, that is, the willingness to help the productivity of others in the group. These findings advance our understanding of how relative performance concerns among co-workers affect the way they work together.

Economic research on gender gaps has focused on variation based on the binary classification of "men" and "women". We explore whether a self-reported continuous measure of gender identity (CGI) explains variation in economic decisions and outcomes beyond the relationship with binary gender. We analyze data from four diverse populations (N=8,018), including measures of economic preferences and educational and labor market outcomes. We find that CGI is significantly associated with economic outcomes, with stronger relationships for men than women. Our results indicate that incorporating measures of self-reported gender identity could enhance our understanding of gender gaps in economic behavior and outcomes.

We examine the impact of reputational concerns on seeking advice. While advice-seeking can improve performance, it may affect how others perceive the seeker's competence. In a large-sample online experiment with white-collar professionals (N=2,521), we test how individuals navigate this tradeoff and if others' beliefs about competence change it. We manipulate observability of the decision to seek and stereotypes about competence. Results show a sizable and inefficient decline in advice-seeking when observable. Higher-order beliefs about competence cannot mediate this inefficiency. We find no evidence that managers interpret seeking advice negatively, documenting a misconception that may hinder knowledge flows in organizations.

We study whether female leaders are less effective than male leaders at coordinating followers’ actions, thereby providing a possible interpretation for the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions. Two studies (N=824) using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than male leaders in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. In these settings, successful coordination 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, precisely estimating the absence of a gender leadership gap. We further show that this result is surprising given experts’ priors.

Arrivals of crises often trigger public appeals by policy leaders, attempting to motivate crisis-mitigating behaviors. We run a controlled experiment among a general-population sample to measure the impact of such appeals and of their emotional tone. Across different treatments, an identical content of the appeal is formulated with either positive or negative tone words. Relative to the case without appeal, both types of appeals raise contributions to crisis mitigation by about 20 percent each. A separate sample of policy-makers is presented with our design and asked to estimate the effect of the appeals. They correctly predict the effect of the positively worded appeal but fail to predict the effect of the negatively worded one. A hidden mechanism is that negatively worded appeals can evoke positive sentiments and, thus, effectively motivate crisis-mitigating behavior.