Democratic institutions and social capital: Experimental evidence on school-based management from a developing country

Abstract

We estimate the effects of a democratic school-based management (SBM) institution on social capital formation in Burkina Faso using a large-scale randomized controlled trial of the SBM combined with lab-in-the-field experiments to measure social capital. We find that this SBM significantly increased social capital in the form of public goods game contributions. Several novel aspects of the social experiment, lab-in-the-field experiments, and data collection provide insight into the mechanisms behind the impact.