Democracy Premium – A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Effects of Democratic Choice in China and Germany

Stephan Tontrup and Wolfgang Gaissmaier

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: Recent experiments in the lab and the field have shown evidence for a democracy premium: cooperation in social dilemmas is stronger when policies are chosen by vote instead of being imposed. What is driving this democratic effect? Some studies suggest that selecting cooperation friendly institutions sends a positive signal, others suggest the premium might be limited to those, who won the vote. Our study contributes to the evidence in two important ways: first we show that the democracy premium can be driven by participation alone. Even more so, we show already the mere entitlement with voting rights fosters cooperation. Second, we demonstrate the cultural dependence of the democracy effect. Running our study at different locations in China, does not suggest any cooperative advantage of democratically chosen rules over imposed ones. We conclude that while our evidence ties the premium to participation and the mere entitlement with voting rights, the effect is not universal. Our results open the debate of what the (cultural) preconditions may be that can bring up a democracy premium.

Keywords: Democracy Premium; Voting Behavior; Cross-Cultural Comparison & China; Public Good Provision; Cooperation and Norm Compliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 D72 D74 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:335551

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4547585

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