An experimental investigation of the impact of exogenous matching methods on cooperation

This is the data associated with the paper. In this paper we aim at identifying the determinants of cooperation through a laboratory experiment. Participants are matched in pairs and after having solved real-effort exercises are asked to choose which proportion of their performance they want to contribute to a team account (the rest being contributed to an individual account). The experiment is composed of several steps corresponding to different matching methods: participants can be matched with a randomly selected participant, with a participant whose cooperative behaviour is similar to theirs or with a participant whose performance is close to theirs. We find that participants are more willing to contribute to the team account (to cooperate) when matched to participants as cooperative as them. We find that being matched with a participant of equal performance is of lower importance. Participants who are not overconfident or with reasonable levels of overconfidence should have contributed their full earned endowment to the team account when matched with a partner with the same team-spirit in order to maximize their payoffs. However, their contribution is only 33% higher than when matched with a random partner and very far away from 100%.