Publication in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics by TI fellow Wendy Janssens and TI alumnus Berber Kramer
The paper "Cooperation in Polygynous Households" by research fellow Wendy Janssens and alumnus Berber Kramer (among others) has been published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. The paper also features as the Chart of the Week.
Read full paper here.
View the Chart of the Week here.
Abstract:
Using a carefully designed series of public goods games, we compare, across monogamous and polygynous households, the willingness of husbands and wives to cooperate to maximize household gains. Compared to monogamous husbands and wives, polygynous husbands and wives are less cooperative, one with another, and co-wives are least cooperative, one with another. The husbands’ and wives’ behavior in a corresponding series of inter-household games indicates that these differences cannot be attributed to selection of less cooperative people into polygyny. Finally, behavior in polygynous households is more reciprocal and less apparently altruistic.
Joint work by Abigail Barr, Marleen Dekker, Wendy Janssens, Bereket Kebede, and Berber Kramer.