Working Paper

Gender Differences in Strategic Reasoning

Marcus Dittrich, Kristina Leipold
CESifo, Munich, 2014

CESifo Working Paper No. 4763

This paper studies gender differences in strategic situations. In two experimental guessing games - the beauty contest and the 11-20 money request game - we analyze the depth of strategic reasoning of women and men. We use unique data from an internet experiment with more than 1,000 participants. We find that men, on average, perform more steps of reasoning than women. Our results also suggest that women behave more consistently across both games.

CESifo Category
Behavioural Economics
Keywords: gender differences, strategic reasoning, level-k, beauty contest, 11-20 money request game
JEL Classification: C720, C900, J160