Gender and cooperative preferences

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