Mario Lackner, Johannes Kepler University Linz (ROSES)

Authors: Mario Lackner (Johannes Kepler University Linz) and Michael Weichselbaumer (Vienna University of Economics and Business)

Title: “Can barely winning lead to losing? Evidence for a substantial gender gap in psychological momentum”

Abstract: We use data from professional tennis to measure the causal effect of past on current performance for women and men. Identification relies on exogenous shocks to the probability of facing a contested game, which is a previous stage of competition with strong resistance. There are fundamental gender differences: whereas men’s performance is unaffected by previously experiencing and winning a contested game, women experience a sizeable deterioration of performance after barely winning the previous stage. This result is linked to gender differences in negative psychological momentum. Detailed analysis reveals heterogeneous effects by experience, ability and contest progression.

Link to paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3985125

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