• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Confidence Men? Evidence on Confidence and Gender among Top Economists
  • Contributor: Sarsons, Heather; Xu, Guo
  • Published: American Economic Association, 2021
  • Published in: AEA Papers and Proceedings, 111 (2021), Seite 65-68
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20211086
  • ISSN: 2574-0768; 2574-0776
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: Using data from economists working in top US universities, we find that women are less confident than men along three margins. When asked about their level of agreement on survey questions about the economy, women are less likely to provide a judgment than their male counterparts. Conditional on providing a judgment, women are less likely to give "extreme" answers in which they strongly agree or disagree. Women are also less confident in the accuracy of their answer. We show that the confidence gap is driven by women being less confident when asked questions outside their field of expertise.