Intergenerational Attitudes Towards Strategic Uncertainty and Competition: A Field Experiment in a Swiss Bank

Thierry Madiès (1) , Marie Claire Villeval (2) , Malgorzata Wasmer (3)

1 CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management
2 GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne
3 Department of Economics - University of Fribourg

With a market entry game inspired by Camerer and Lovallo (1999), we study the attitudes of junior and senior employees towards strategic uncertainty and competition. Seniors exhibit higher entry rates compared to juniors, especially when the market capacity is not too low or when earnings from entry depend on relative performance. This difference persists after controlling for attitudes towards non-strategic uncertainty and for beliefs on others' competitiveness and on relative ability. Seniors are more willing to compete when they predict a higher number of competitors. This contradicts the stereotype of less competitive older employees.

Mots clés: Aging; risk; ambiguity; competitiveness; confidence; experiment

Domaines: Economies et finances

Thierry Madiès, Marie Claire Villeval, Malgorzata Wasmer. Intergenerational Attitudes Towards Strategic Uncertainty and Competition: A Field Experiment in a Swiss Bank. European Economic Review, 2013, 61, pp. 153-168. ⟨10.1016/j.euroecorev.2013.04.002⟩. ⟨halshs-00807436⟩