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The Moldable Young: How Institutions Impact Social Trust

Author

Listed:
  • Bergh, Andreas

    (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

  • Öhrvall, Richard

    (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

Abstract

Social trust is linked to many desirable economic and social outcomes, but the causality between trust and institutions is debated. Using new data from a representative sample of 2,668 Swedish expatriates (surveyed in the SOM Institute’s Swedish Expatriate Survey 2014), we use variation in time spent in the new country to infer about the effect of country level institutions and norms (such as corruption perceptions, average trust levels and various aspects of economic freedom) on social trust. The results suggest that individual trust suffers in countries with high corruption, low trust and low legal quality. The effect is relatively small, occurs mainly during the first 3 to 10 years and is observed only among those aged less than 30 at the time of arrival in the new country. The results are robust to controlling for a large array of individual characteristics (including age), and support the view that social trust is sensitive to events that occur early in life. In contrast, after the age of approximately 30, trust seems to be a highly resilient personal trait.

Suggested Citation

  • Bergh, Andreas & Öhrvall, Richard, 2016. "The Moldable Young: How Institutions Impact Social Trust," Working Paper Series 1132, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1132
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trust; Social norms; Institutions; Migration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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