Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13789
Authors: David Card; Stefano Dellavigna; Patricia Funk; Nagore Iriberri
Abstract: We study the role of gender in the evaluation of economic research using submissions tofour leading journals. We find that referee gender has no effect on the relative assessment offemale- versus male-authored papers, suggesting that any differential biases of male refereesare negligible. To determine whether referees as a whole impose different standards for femaleauthors, we compare citations for female and male-authored papers, holding constant refereeevaluations and other characteristics. We find that female-authored papers receive about 25%more citations than observably similar male-authored papers. Editors largely follow the referees,resulting in a 6 percentage point lower probability of a revise and resubmit verdict for female-authored papers relative to a citation-maximizing benchmark. In their desk rejection decisions,editors treat female authors more favorably, though they still impose a higher bar than would beimplied by citation-maximization. We find no differences in the informativeness of female versusmale referees, or in the weight that editors place on the recommendations of female versus malereferees. We also find no differences in editorial delays for female versus male-authored papers.
Keywords: Gender Bias; Economic Research; Referee Evaluations; Citations
JEL Codes: A1; J7
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Author Gender (Y70) | Citation Rates (A14) |
| Referee Gender (J16) | Assessment of Papers (C52) |
| Editor Gender (Y70) | RR Decisions (R50) |
| Citation Rates (A14) | RR Decisions (R50) |