We investigate the possibility that females and males had a distinct path in the evolution of prosociality and competitiveness. We collected experimental data measuring preferences for individual competition and in-group cooperation for a randomly selected sample of 751 individuals in Sierra...

We document the historical roots and contemporary consequences of masculinity norms: beliefs about the proper conduct of men. We exploit a natural experiment in which convict transportation in the 18th and 19th centuries created a variegated spatial pattern of sex ratios across Australia. Areas...

This paper studies the influence of marine ecology on social institutions of inheritance and descent. In a sample of 79 small-scale horticultural fishing communities in the Solomon Islands, and in samples of 186 to 1,267 societies across the world, we find that coral reef density systematically...

Data from the first post-Arab Spring elections reveal that support for Islamic parties came from richer districts and individuals. We show that standard public finance arguments help explain the voting pattern in these elections and others in the Muslim world. Our model predicts that a voter's...

We show workplace culture is gendered. We apply computational linguistic models to listed firms’ reports to an Australian gender-equality agency to construct the first systematic measures of ‘corporate gender culture’—firms’ practices pertaining to the treatment of women across seven...

Reef density predicts the prevalence of matriliny in a sample of 186 societies across the world and in a sample of 59 small-scale horticultural fishing communities in the Solomon Islands. We show that this result holds even controlling for common descent by relying on variation within...

We document the implications of missing women in the short and long run. We exploit a natural historical experiment, which sent large numbers of male convicts and far fewer female convicts to Australia in the 18th and 19th century. In more male-biased areas, women historically married more and...

Systematic discrimination and violence against minorities are enduring phenomena. This paper investigates the role of racist narratives in sustaining discriminatory attitudes and collective violence against the Black population in the United States South from 1865 to today. Leveraging plausible...