I’ll Take Gender Differences for $400: Using Jeopardy! to Analyze Attitudes Toward Risk

Abstract

Studies have shown that women perform worse than men in winner-take-all competitions and often avoid such settings entirely, which could put women at a significant disadvantage in the labor market. Recent research, however, has challenged this view. One problem with testing for risk averse behavior is the difficulty of finding settings in which people can display it. We find such a setting in the Final Jeopardy segment of the game show Jeopardy! Using data on wagers in Final Jeopardy, we show that women who compete on the show are no more risk averse than men.