Microfoundations of social capital

Christian Thöni, Jean-Robert Tyran and Erik Wengström

Journal of Public Economics, 2012, vol. 96, issue 7-8, 635-643

Abstract: Research on social capital routinely relies on survey measures of trust which can be collected in large and heterogeneous samples at low cost. We validate such survey measures in an incentivized public good experiment and show that they are importantly related to cooperation behavior in a large and heterogeneous sample. We provide evidence on the microfoundation of this relation by use of an experimental design that enables us to disentangle preferences for cooperation from beliefs about others' cooperation. Our analysis suggests that the standard trust question used in the World Values Survey is a proxy for cooperation preferences rather than beliefs about others' cooperation. In contrast, the “fairness question”, a recently proposed alternative to the standard trust question, seems to operate through beliefs rather than preferences.

Keywords: Social capital; Trust; Fairness; Public goods; Cooperation; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (91)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Microfoundations of Social Capital (2010)
Working Paper: Microfoundations of Social Capital (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:96:y:2012:i:7:p:635-643

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.04.003

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