Résumé
•We study whether groups that are formed as the result of individuals’ preferences to interact with like-minded others have higher cooperation than groups with a composition decided by an external authority.•The literature on the value of decision rights would predict higher cooperation in endogenously formed groups compared to exogenously formed groups.•We find that cooperation is higher in exogenously formed groups.•The difference between the two is driven by the behavior of high cooperators.
Grouping cooperatively disposed subjects with one another has been shown to slow the decline of contributions in public goods games. So far, similar findings have been obtained both when groups are exogenously formed by the experimenter and when they are endogenously formed by algorithms taking subjects’ preferences for partners into account. We designed an experiment in which internally homogeneous groups – composed of like-minded subjects – can form either exogenously or endogenously, testing the conjecture that endogenously formed groups of cooperators will outperform similar exogenously formed groups due to subjects’ decision rights in the endogenous procedure. We find that the conjecture is not supported, discussing potential explanations.