Choosing Bargaining Partners - An experimental study on the impact of information about income and gender

Ultimatum proposals and dictator donations are studied when proposers can choose the sex and income of the responder. Information about the responders' income generated strong effects in the selection of responders; subjects preferred to send proposals to low-income responders and the proposals were negatively correlated to responder income. The responders' gender did not affect proposal levels, but strong effects were observed in the selection of responders; females were much more popular than males. Hence, signals of income and sex might be at least as in important in deciding with whom to bargain as in deciding how to bargain.