| Abstract: |
In this paper, we investigate one factor that can directly contribute to—as
well as indirectly shed light on the other causes of—the gender gap in
academic publishing: length of peer review. Using detailed administrative data
from an economics field journal, we find that, conditional on manuscript
quality, referees spend longer reviewing female-authored papers, are slower to
recommend accepting them, manuscripts by women go through more rounds of
review and their authors spend longer revising them. Less disaggregated data
from 32 economics and finance journals corroborate these results. We conclude
by showing that all gender gaps decline—and eventually disappear—as the same
referee reviews more papers. This pattern suggests novice referees initially
statistically discriminate against female authors, but are less likely to do
so as their information about and confidence in the peer review process
improves. More generally, they also suggest that women may be particularly
disadvantaged when evaluators are less familiar with the objectives and
parameters of an assessment framework. |