author's gender aects rating of academic articles

Author's gender a�ects rating of academic articles

Imagine a scientist...



source: Steinke et al. (2007),�Assessing media in�uences on middle school�aged children's perceptionsof women in science using the draw-a-scientist test (DAST)�, Science Communication 29 (1).



`Male scientist' stereotype



`Male better� scientist' stereotype



Evidence from an incentivized, deception-free laboratory experiment

Magdalena SmykMichaª Krawczyk

GendEQU projectGRAPE UW

University of Warsaw

June 2, 2014


Experiment design and procedures - how?

The experiment



Treatments

First step: articles

10 papers

each pair - written by mixed-gender couple

each pair - one paper published in top economic journal and one workingpaper

erased names

two by two design:�a female economist� (in Polish: �ekonomistka�)�a male economist� (in Polish: �ekonomista�)�a young female economist��a young male economist�



What was the experiment about?

Task:

Read the entire article and answer on a scale 0-7 how you evaluate:author's competencelanguage qualitymethodologyliterature reviewscienti�c signi�cancescienti�c qualityintelligibility

In your opinion was this paper published in one of the top economicjournals or was not published at all?

Reward

80 PLN (20EUR \25USD)additional 10 PLN - if answer to the question about publication was correct.



What we expected?

Hypothesis 1

Female-authored paper will less often be judged as published and receive lowerratings than male-authored.

Hypothesis 2

Papers written by young economists will less often be judged as published.

Intuition

The gender bias will be greater for the question of whether the paper waspublished (incentivized and indirect question).



Design

Sessions

10 sessions conducted at the Laboratory of Experimental Economics,University of Warsaw (Poland)

pen-and-paper

45 minutes per session

193 subjects

Subjects

familiar with economics and pro�cient in English

60% - women

2/3 students (majority: economics masters)


Results

Results


Results

Female-authored papers - less often judged as published.


Results

Authors' young age - insigni�cant.


Results

No gender bias for ratings...

male female Two-sided MWWauthor author testaverage average (p-value)

author's competence 5.15 4.99 0.17language quality 4.98 4.92 0.79proper methodology used 4.83 4.77 0.62comprehensiveness of literature review 4.76 4.66 0.73scienti�c signi�cance of results 4.08 4.17 0.76overall scienti�c quality 4.70 4.56 0.29

...yet strong positive correlation between ratings and "judged published"

author's language methodology literature scienti�c scienti�ccompetence quality review signi�cance quality

judged 0.4767*** 0.3691*** 0.4152*** 0.3968*** 0.4121*** 0.4975***published


Results

Probit model: subjects characteristics

Table : Paper judged as published: probit regressions

(1) (2) (3) (4)

female author - 0.353* - 0.350* - 0.370* - 0.462*

young author 0.146 0.147 0.133 0.143

female subject - 0.561*** - 0.428

year of study 0.00341 - 0.000533

not a student - 0.290 - 0.315

female author*male subject 0.255

paper e�ects included NO YES YES YES

observations 193 193 173 173pseudo R2 0.017 0.039 0.0759 0.0774

*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1


Conclusions and discussion

Conclusions

The gender of the author matters when it comes to the evaluation of apaper (at least in the �eld of economics and between Polish students)...

but seemingly not author's age.

Why those results are important? - because of our subjectsthe time when important early career decisions are madeinexperienced researchers may easily be discouraged.young women fail to see successful female economists that could serve asrole models.


Conclusions and discussion

Thank you for your attention!

Magdalena Smyk

[email protected]

author's gender aects rating of academic articles

Economy & Finance