Enhancing cooperation and investigating peer effects on human capital formation: A randomized-controlled field study with primary school children

我们的建议有两个主要目标。第一个目标是测试个人的合作偏好是否具有可延展性，以及是否可以在多大程度上以积极的方式受到系统的影响。特别是，我们假设，在相当长的一段时间内的实际合作经验通过影响合作偏好对合作行为产生持久的影响。探讨合作偏好和模式差异的根源，为经济学和相关领域的大量文献提供了新的视角，指出合作对于分配成果、有效利用共同资金和解决冲突的重要性。我们项目的第二个目标是更广泛地调查社会环境对个人特征和偏好的影响。我们提出的问题是，随着时间的推移，一个人的社会环境的初始特征在多大程度上会对这个人的特征的发展(即变化)产生影响。我们将收集的非常全面的纵向数据集使我们能够跟踪提案中更详细描述的若干进一步的从属目标。我们的实地研究的重点将放在儿童身上，因为先前的研究表明：(1)幼儿的偏好和技能的可塑性水平似乎更高，(2)这个年龄段的发展差异是生活结果的有力预测因素。为了解决其目标，同时确保因果推理和高外部效度，我们的研究提案使用了随机控制干预，在参与者的自然背景下，德国小学。

Our proposal has two main objectives. The first objective is to test whether and if so to what extent individual preferences for cooperation are malleable and can be systematically affected in a positive way. In particular, we hypothesize that the actual experience of cooperation for a substantial period of time has a lasting effect on cooperative behavior by affecting preferences for cooperation. Exploring the sources of differences in preferences for and patterns of cooperation provides a new perspective on the large literature ineconomics and related fields pointing to the importance of cooperation for allocative outcomes, for the efficient use of common pools, and for the resolution of conflicts. The second objective of our project is to investigate the effect of the social environment on individual characteristics and preferences more generally. We ask the question to what degree initial characteristics of an individual`s social environment causally affect the development, i.e. changes, of this individual`s characteristics over time. The very comprehensive longitudinal data set that we will be collecting allows us to follow a number of further subordinate objectives which are described in more detail in the proposal. The focus of our field study will be on children,as previous research has shown that (1) the level of malleability of preferences and skills seems to be higher for young children, and (2)differences in development at this age are strong predictors for life outcomes. To address its objectives while ensuring causal inference and high external validity, our research proposal uses a randomized controlled intervention in the natural context of the participants, German primary schools.