Angelo Antoci () (University of Sassari) Marcello Galeotti () (University o Firenze) Paolo Russu () (University of Sassari) Zarri () (Department of Economics (University of Verona))
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In this paper, we focus on a specific component of economically rel- evant trust, i.e. on what we call `institutionally produced generalized trust', defined as the amount of widespread trust (which is a public good for the economic system as a whole) endogenously and continuously gen- erated by the interaction of two types of private organizations operating in the economy: for-profit firms and nonprofit organizations. Through an evolutionary model with a trust accumulation equation and two replicator equations (capturing the evolution of economic organizations over time) we show that (1) The fixed point where all the four sub-types of private organizations considered in the model are simultaneously present can be attractive only if `virtuous' for-profits (i.e. socially responsible firms) and `virtuous' nonprofits (i.e. actually trustworthy mission-oriented organiza- tions) generate a negative externality on the other organizations of the same type. (2) The fixed point where the level of trust is very low and no socially responsible firms neither trustworthy organizations are present can be attractive; this social configuration interestingly recalls, to some extent, what some prominent social scientists depict as a trend currently occurring in the United States. (3) A socio-economic scenario where four pure population fixed points are simultaneously attractive exists.
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Paper provided by Università di Verona, Dipartimento di Scienze economiche in its series Working Papers with number
22.
Length: 36 Date of creation: Jul 2005 Date of revision: Publication status: Published on Journal of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, 29, 3, 2006, pp. 783-802. Handle: RePEc:ver:wpaper:22
Find related papers by JEL classification: L3 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Zak, Paul J & Knack, Stephen, 2001.
"Trust and Growth,"
Economic Journal,
Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 295-321, April.
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