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This paper uses detailed stroke-by-stroke data from seven tennis Grand Slam tournaments played between 2006 and 2007 to assess whether men and women respond differently to competitive pressure in a setting with large monetary rewards. At crucial junctures of the match, both men and women adopt a less aggressive playing strategy, meaning that the probability of hitting winning shots and making unforced errors decreases. The conclusion that the playing strategy becomes less aggressive is supported by new instant-by-instant data on the location of strokes: on more important points, players hit strokes that are closer to the center of the court, and clear the net by a higher margin. I argue that, given the observed frequencies of hitting winning shots and unforced errors, moving to a less aggressive strategy represents a deterioration in performance. For both men and women, the probability that a player wins a match against an opponent of equal quality would increase from 0.5 up to as much as 0.75-0.80 if they could play as aggressively on the more important points as on the less important ones. Sensitivity analysis shows that even a modest improvement in performance on more important points could lead to a sizeable increase in match winning probabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper estimates intergenerational elasticities across three generations in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, exploring how maternal and paternal grandfathers predict the economic status of their grandsons and granddaughters. We document that the relationship between the income of grandparents and grandchildren differs by gender. The socio-economic status of grandsons is more strongly associated with the status of paternal grandfathers than maternal grandfathers. The status of maternal grandfathers is more strongly correlated with the status of granddaughters than grandsons, while the opposite is true for paternal grandfathers. We argue that the findings can be rationalized by a model of gender-specific intergenerational transmission of traits and imperfect assortative mating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether attacks against Israeli targets help Palestinian factions gain public support. We link individual-level survey data to the full list of Israeli and Palestinian fatalities during the period of the Second Intifada (2000–2005) and estimate a flexible discrete choice model for faction supported. We find some support for the “outbidding” hypothesis, the notion that Palestinian factions use violence to gain prestige and influence public opinion within the community. In particular, the two leading Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, gain in popularity following successful attacks against Israeli targets. Our results suggest, however, that most movement occurs within either the secular groups or the Islamist groups, but not between them. That is, Fatah’s gains come at the expense of smaller secular factions, while Hamas’s gains come at the expense of smaller Islamic factions and the disaffected. In contrast, attacks by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad lower support for that faction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]