Gender and Redistribution: Experimental Evidence

Thomas Buser, Louis Putterman and Joël van der Weele
Additional contact information
Joël van der Weele: University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

No 16-063/I, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: Gender differences in voting patterns and political attitudes towards redistribution are well-documented. The experimental gender literature suggests several plausible behavioral explanations behind these differences, relating to gender differences in confidence concerning future relative income position, risk aversion, and social preferences. We use data from lab experiments on preferences for redistribution conducted in the U.S. and several European countries to disentangle these potential mechanisms. We find that when choosing to redistribute income as a disinterested observer, women choose higher tax rates than men when initial income depends on performance in a task but not when it is randomly allocated. In a veil of ignorance condition with uncertainty about the income position of the decision maker, this effect is even stronger, leading to a 10ppt gender difference in average chosen tax rates in the performance conditions. We find that this gender difference is mainly due to men being more (over)confident about their task performance and the resulting income position, with gender differences in risk aversion and social preferences playing a minor role.

Keywords: gender; redistribution; overconfidence; risk attitudes; voting; taxation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D31 H24 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-08-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-ltv, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/16063.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20160063

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().