Gender Differences in Cooperative Environments? Evidence from The U.S. Congress

Abstract

Abstract This paper uses data on bill co-sponsorship in the U.S. House of Representatives to estimate gender differences in cooperative behaviour. We find that among Democrats there is no significant gender gap in the number of co-sponsors recruited, but women-sponsored bills tend to have fewer co-sponsors from the opposite party. On the other hand, we find robust evidence that Republican women recruit more co-sponsors and attract more bipartisan support on the bills that they sponsor. We interpret these results as evidence that cooperation is mostly driven by a commonality of interest, rather than gender per se.