Group identity and gender in public goods experiments

Abstract

This paper explores the effects of group identity and gender in a public goods experiment. We compare the behavior of participants who can be expected to have a pre-existing sense of group identity to that of randomly selected participants, and to that of participants who have undertaken community-building pre-experiment activities. While statistically significant differences were observed, our results suggest that the effects of group identity and gender on behavior are complicated, involving the nature of the groups involved. In particular, the claim that women are less likely to free-ride on others with whom they have a relationship is not supported. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.