Assessing trust through social capital? A possible experimental answer
Abstract
Trust is an important variable in economics, as several transactions are based on it; unfortunately it is difficult to measure. The recent economic literature on social capital shows a positive association between this concept and trust. As social capital is easier to measure than trust is, this paper analyzes the possibility of assessing trust measuring social capital using experimental economics. A basic trust game is played in three Western European countries with undergraduate students; a questionnaire measures their level of social capital, as time spent within social networks. This measure is stronger and more precise than the ones generally used. In particular this paper firstly measures social capital as the intensity of a membership to a voluntary organization, while the extant literature generally considers only the membership per se. Secondly the use of an experiment instead of a questionnaire allows for constructiong a measure of trust which is in principle continuous. Thirdly to play an experiment allows for observing the behaviour of the participants better than by the means of a survey. The results are supportive of the fact that trust can be assessed through social capital, although the presence of a strong geographical effect has to be accounted for.Download Info
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Paper provided by Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS in its series POLIS Working Papers with number 119.Length: 33 pages
Date of creation: Feb 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:uca:ucapdv:119
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://polis.unipmn.it
Related research
Keywords: generalized trust; social capital; gender effect;Other versions of this item:
- Matteo Migheli, 2012. "Assessing Trust Through Social Capital? A Possible Experimental Answer," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 298-327, 04.
- C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
- C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-03-14 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBE-2009-03-14 (Cognitive & Behavioural Economics)
- NEP-EXP-2009-03-14 (Experimental Economics)
- NEP-GTH-2009-03-14 (Game Theory)
- NEP-HPE-2009-03-14 (History & Philosophy of Economics)
- NEP-SOC-2009-03-14 (Social Norms & Social Capital)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Orso, Cristina Elisa, 2009. "Formal and informal sectors: Interactions between moneylenders and traditional banks in the rural Indian credit market," POLIS Working Papers 135, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
- Bondonio, Daniele, 2009. "Impact identification strategies for evaluating business incentive programs," POLIS Working Papers 129, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
- Carla Marchese & Giovanni B. Ramello, 2011.
"In the Beginning Was the Word. Now is the Copyright,"
Review of Law & Economics,
De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 12.
- Marchese, Carla & Ramello, Giovanni B., 2010. "In the beginning was the Word. Now is the Copyright," POLIS Working Papers 140, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
- Giuranno, Michele, 2009. "The logic of party coalitions with political activism and public financing," POLIS Working Papers 134, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
- Privileggi, Fabio, 2008. "On the transition dynamics in endogenous recombinant growth models," POLIS Working Papers 120, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
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