Cooperation, Trust, and Economic Development: An Experimental Study in China

Junyi Shen and Xiangdong Qin
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Xiangdong Qin: School of Economics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

No DP2013-14, Discussion Paper Series from Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University

Abstract: Many previous empirical studies have suggested that cooperation and trust affect economic growth. However, the precise relationship between trust and cooperation (i.e., whether trust leads to cooperation or cooperation leads to trust) remains unclear and it is not known how the level of economic development affects the level of cooperation and trust. Using a combination of public goods experiment, gambling game experiment, and trust game experiment, we investigate the links among cooperation, trust, and economic development in four regions of China. Our results suggest that first, there is a U-shaped or V-shaped relationship between cooperation and economic development; second, on the one hand, cooperation leads to trust, and on the other hand, more cooperative behavior may be created by rewarding trusting behavior; and third, men are more cooperative and trusting than women. Furthermore, we find that the widely used 'GSS trust' question from the General Social Survey (GSS) does not predict either cooperation or trust, whereas the questions 'GSS fair' and 'GSS help' have weak predictive power for trusting behavior but not for cooperative behavior.

Keywords: Cooperation; Trust; Economic development; Experiment; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 H41 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2013-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cse, nep-dev, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-soc and nep-tra
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Journal Article: Cooperation, Trust and Economic Development: An Experimental Study in China (2014)
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