Ruling the Roost: The Vicious Circle and the Emergence of Pecking Order

Abstract

This paper constructs a new game—the “rule-the-roost game”—where players compete repeatedly for power (“chickens”) and wealth (“eggs”) in the laboratory. We find that a vicious circle develops where the powerful accumulate more power and wealth over time, leading to substantial inequality. At the same time, the powerless take actions to oppose the powerful, which meaningfully reduces inequality. Gender differences are small in early rounds of the game but grow over time. The ratio of the female win rate to the male win rate declines by 1.3 percent each round, or 37.7 percent over the entire game. We argue that the growing difference is due to the vicious circle, which compounds the effects of small style-of-play differences. These findings suggest that gender imbalances may be particularly large in contexts such as firms where men and women interact repeatedly.

Keywords: power, inequality, hierarchy, gender differences

JEL Classification: D02, D31, D72, J16, O10