Gender and cooperative preferences

Nadja Furtner, Martin Kocher*, Peter Martinsson, Dominik Matzat, Conny Wollbrant

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Evidence of gender differences in cooperation in social dilemmas is inconclusive. This paper experimentally elicits unconditional contributions, a contribution vector (cooperative preferences), and beliefs about the level of others’ contributions in variants of the public goods game. We show that existing inconclusive results can be understood when controlling for beliefs and underlying cooperative preferences. Robustness checks of our original data from Germany, based on data from six countries around the world, confirm our main empirical results: Women are significantly more often classified as conditionally cooperative than men, while men are more likely to be free riders. Beliefs play an important role in shaping unconditional contributions, supporting the view that these are more malleable or sensitive to subtle cues in women than in men.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)39-48
    Number of pages10
    JournalJournal of Economic Behavior and Organization
    Volume181
    Early online date10 Dec 2020
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jan 2021

    Keywords

    • Public goods
    • Conditional cooperation
    • Gender
    • Experiement

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