Hi all,
This week at the Applied Statistics workshop we will be welcoming M. Daniele Paserman, a
Professor of Economics at Boston University. He will be presenting work entitled
"Gender Differences in Cooperative Environments? Evidence from the U.S.
Congress." Please find the abstract below and on the website. You can find the
paper here:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w22488
We will meet in CGIS Knafel Room 354 at noon and lunch will be provided.
Best,
Pam
Title: "Gender Differences in Cooperative Environments? Evidence from the U.S.
Congress" (joint with Stefano Gagliarducci)
Abstract: This paper uses data on bill sponsorship and cosponsorship in the U.S. House of
Representatives to estimate gender differences in cooperative behavior. We employ a number
of econometric methodologies to address the potential selection of female representatives
into electoral districts with distinct preferences for cooperativeness, including
regression discontinuity and matching. After accounting for selection, we find that among
Democrats there is no significant gender gap in the number of cosponsors recruited, but
women-sponsored bills tend to have fewer cosponsors from the opposite party. On the other
hand, we find robust evidence that Republican women recruit more cosponsors and attract
more bipartisan support on the bills that they sponsor. This is particularly true on bills
that address issues more relevant for women, over which female Republicans have possibly
preferences that are closer to those of Democrats. We interpret these results as evidence
that cooperation is mostly driven by a commonality of interest, rather than gender per
se.