Are men less generous to a smarter woman? Evidence from a dictator game experiment

Abstract Although evidence suggests men are more generous to women than to men, it may stem from paternalism and could reverse when women excel in important skills for one’s career success, such as cognitive skills. Using a dictator game, this paper studies whether male dictators allocate less to female receivers than to male receivers when these receivers have higher intelligence quotients (IQs) than dictators. By exogenously varying the receivers’ IQ relative to the dictators’, I do not find evidence consistent with this hypothesis; if anything, male dictators allocate slightly more to female receivers with higher IQs than to male receivers with equivalent IQs. The results hold both in mean and distribution and are robust to the so-called “beauty premium.” Also, female dictators’ allocations are qualitatively similar to male dictators. These findings suggest that women who excel in cognitive skills may not receive less favorable treatment than equally intelligent men in the labor market.