Perfecting Performance: A Gendered Perspective with Lise Vesterlund

In this talk with Lise Vesterlund, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh, she presents new evidence on gender differences in the pursuit of top performance and explores their potential labor market implications. Using data on college students’ grades and academic behaviors, she shows that female students earn top letter grades more often than their male peers, even when conditioning on courses taken and overall GPA. These differences are partly driven by women’s greater likelihood of retaking courses and taking optional exams. Using survey and experimental evidence, Vesterlund evaluates whether these behaviors result from differences in internal motivation or from differing responses to external evaluation. Finally, she explores how differences in the pursuit of top performance contribute to gender differences in labor market outcomes.