Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Papers in Economics,
University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

No 677: Gender and cooperative preferences on five continents

Nadja C. Furtner, Martin G. Kocher, Peter Martinsson (), Dominik Matzat and Conny Wollbrant ()
Additional contact information
Nadja C. Furtner: University of Munich, Munich, Germany
Martin G. Kocher: University of Munich, Munich, Germany
Peter Martinsson: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Dominik Matzat: University of Munich, Munich, Germany, Postal: Department of Economics., School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG
Conny Wollbrant: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden

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 and completely explained when controlling for beliefs and underlying cooperative preferences. Robustness checks based on data from around 450 additional independent observations 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, and they seem to be more malleable or sensitive to subtle cues for women than for men.

Keywords: Public goods; conditional cooperation; gender; experiment

JEL-codes: C91; D64; H41

26 pages, November 2016

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