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Verified Trust: Reciprocity, Altruism and Noise in Trust Games

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Author Info
Brülhart, Marius
Usunier, Jean-Claude

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Abstract

Behavioural economists have come to recognize that reciprocity, the interaction of trust and trustworthiness, is a distinct and economically relevant component of individual preferences alongside selfishness and altruism. This recognition is principally due to observed decisions in experimental ‘trust games’. However, recent research has cast doubt on the explanatory power of trust as a determinant of those decisions, suggesting that altruism may explain much of what ‘looks like’ trust. Moreover, empirical tests for alternative behavioural determinants can be sensitive to experimental bias due to differences in protocols and framing. Therefore, we propose discriminatory tests for altruism and trust that can be based on within-treatment and within-subject comparisons, and we control for group attributes of experimental subjects. Our results support trust (i.e. expected reciprocation) as the dominant motivation for ‘trust like’ decisions.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 4758.

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Date of creation: Nov 2004
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4758

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Related research
Keywords: altruism; experimental error; reciprocity; trust game;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Vyrastekova, Jana & Garikipati, Supriya, 2005. "Beliefs and trust : an experiment," Discussion Paper 88, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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