Gender Gaps in the Evaluation of Research: Evidence from Submissions to Economics Conferences*
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | Laura Hospido,Carlos Sanz |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/obes.12409 |
590
©2020 The Department of Economics, University of Oxford and JohnWiley & Sons Ltd.
OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICSAND STATISTICS, 83, 3 (2021) 0305–9049
doi: 10.1111/obes.12409
Gender Gaps in the Evaluation of Research:Evidence
from Submissions to Economics Conferences*
Laura Hospido† and Carlos Sanz‡
†Bank of Spain and IZA, Madrid 28014, Spain, http://laurahospido.com, (e-mail: laura.
hospido@bde.es.)
‡Bank of Spain, Madrid 28014, Spain, https://sites.google.com/site/carlossanzecon/home,
(e-mail: carlossanz@bde.es.)
Abstract
We study gender differences in the evaluation of submissions to economics conferences.
Using data on more than 9,000 submissions from the Annual Congress of the European
Economic Association (2015–17), the Annual Meeting of the Spanish EconomicAssoci-
ation (2012–17) and the Spring Meeting of Young Economists (2018), we find that all-
female-authored papers are 3.3% points (p.p.), or 6.8%, less likely to be accepted than
all-male-authored papers. The estimated gap ranges from 5.4 p.p. (95% CI: 2.5 p.p., 8.3
p.p.) to 2.9 p.p. (0 p.p., 5.8 p.p.). This gap is present after controlling for number of authors
of the paper; field; referee fixed effects; cites of the paper; authors’previous publication
record, affiliations, and experience; and connections between the authors of a given paper
and the referees that evaluate it. We provide evidence suggesting that the gap is driven by
stereotypes against female authors: it is entirely driven by male referees, only exists for
lesser-known authors, and seems larger in more masculine fields, especially in finance.
JEL Classification numbers: A1, J16.
*Wethank Jaime Alonso-Carrera, Emmanuelle Auriol, Antonio Cabrales,Vera Z. Eichenauer, Irene Ferrari, Manu
Garc´ıa, Nezih Guner, Eliana La Ferrara,Juan Francisco Jimeno, Gemma Prunner-Thomas and John Rust for their help
in obtaining the data; Chiara Giannetto, V´ıctor Gund´ın, Camila Mishell Pineda and Rub´en Su´arez for outstanding
research assistance; and Manuel Arellano, Olympia Bover, Paula Bustos, L´ıdia Farr´e, Nicola Fuchs-Sch¨undeln,
Thomas Fujiwara,Mar t´ınGonzalez-Eiras, Nezih Guner, Andrea Ichino, Nagore Iriberri, Margarita Machelett, Monica
Martinez-Bravo, Luigi Minale, Francesc Ortega, M. Daniele Paserman, Barbara Petrongolo, Climent Quintana-
Domeque, Roberto Ramos, Pau Rold´an, Ernesto Villanueva, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at
the AEET Labour Economics Meeting,Annual Congress of the European Economic Association, Annual Meeting of
the Spanish Economic Association, Bank of Spain, Conference on Gender and Career Progression, COSME Gender
Economics Workshop,EALE/SOLE/AASLE World Conference, Econometric SocietyWorld Congress, Universidad
Complutense de Madrid, Universitat de Barcelona/IEB, Universitat de Girona and Workshop on Public Policies:
Inequality of Opportunity for useful comments. Special thanks to Manu Garc´ıa for invaluable programming help.
The opinions and analyses are the responsibility of the authors and, therefore, do not necessarily coincide with those
of the Banco de Espa˜na or the Eurosystem.
Gender gaps in the evaluation of research591
I. Introduction
Improving gender equality in academia and research is at the centre of public policy de-
bate, and is, therefore, attracting much attention in the academic literature. Economics in
particular remains a male-dominated field. Although the share of women in economics has
grown, it is still lower than in STEM fields.1For instance, in the United States, women
account for 33% of new PhDs, 29% of assistant professors at PhD granting departments
and only 14% of full professors (Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics
Profession (2017)). Potentialexplanations for the low representation of women include gen-
der differences in the preferences for competitive environments (Niederle andVesterlund
(2007), Buser, Niederle and Oosterbeek (2014)) or in bargaining abilities in the labour mar-
ket (Blackaby, Booth and Frank (2005)), child-rearing responsibilities (Bertrand (2013);
Bertrand et al. (2018)) and gender-based discrimination (Goldin and Rouse (2000)).
In this paper, we study gender differencesin the evaluation of submissions to economics
conferences. Conferences are an essential part of academic life. They are useful to receive
feedback, improve presentation and communication skills, get to know fellow economists
in the field, hear about the latest research, gain visibility, and develop networking and
future collaborations. Indeed, it has been shown that conferences increase the cites of the
articles presented there (de Leon and McQuillin (2018)) and the likelihood of co-authoring
with another attendant in the future (Campos, Leon and McQuillin (2018)). Hence, the
presence of gender gaps in the evaluation process may have substantial impact on the
professional careers of economists. Furthermore, understanding whether or not there are
gender differences in this context can be informative about the state of gender equality in
the academic environment.2
Conference submissions are evaluated through blind peer-review, which is an estab-
lished component of professional practice. The fundamental principle is straightforward:
experts in a given domain appraise the professional performance, creativity or quality of
scientific work produced by others in their field or area of competence (Lee et al. (2013)).
Peer review in economics covers a wide spectrum of activities, including the evaluation of
research grant applications, review of articles submitted to journals, rating of papers and
posters submitted to conferences, and promotion and tenure decisions. Threats to the im-
partiality of the review may be largerin the context of conferences, where referees evaluate
a large number of papers in a short period of time. While there is some work on gender
gaps at the evaluation of grants proposals, papers submitted to journals and promotions,
less is known regarding conferences.
We have obtained unique data from the submissions to three general-interest academic
conferences: the Annual Congress of the European Economic Association (EEAC), the
Annual Meeting of the Spanish Economic Association (SAEe) and the Spring Meeting
1Lundberg and Stearns (2019), using data on the share of female faculty in top-50 departments for several science
and social science disciplines from 2002 to 2012, document that economics remains within the lowest group, along
with physics, math and engineering, and far below the biologicaland other social sciences. Indeed, Ceci et al. (2014)
find economics to be an ‘outlier’ among academic fields because of ‘a persistent sex gap in promotion that cannot
readily be explained by productivity differences’.
2A recent survey (American Economic Association (2019)) describes a competitive climate in the economics
profession that is hostile to women and, in particular, related to the experiences of discrimination in invitations to
participate in research conferences, associations and networks.
©2020 The Department of Economics, University of Oxford and JohnWiley & Sons Ltd
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