Does democratic decision-making process enhance cooperation among children and adolescents? A large-scale lab-in-the-field experiment with students

The endogeneity premium refers to the increased cooperation observed when institutional rules are determined through a democratic decision-making process by group members rather than imposed externally. While this phenomenon has been documented among adults, little is known about whether it also appears in children. We investigate this question through a lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over 1600 student subjects aged 7–17, who participated in a setting where a reward or punishment rule was implemented either through democratic (i.e., endogenously chosen) or non-democratic (i.e., exogenously imposed) decision-making processes. We find that students exhibit substantial cooperation across all settings. Notably, their contributions are significantly higher under exogenously imposed institutions than under endogenously chosen ones, regardless of the rule types (i.e., reward or punishment). We provide explanatory evidence for this observation, suggesting that theoretical frameworks commonly used to explain the endogeneity premium in adult participants may not apply to children. Primary school-aged children may not yet have developed a preference for democratic decision-making and may be more accustomed to top-down rule enforcement. This explanation is further supported by the emergence of the endogeneity premium among adolescent participants, in contrast to its absence in child participants.