Does trust extend beyond the village? Experimental trust and social distance in Cameroon

Alvin Etang Ndip (), David Fielding and Stephen Knowles ()
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Alvin Etang Ndip: Department of Economics, Yale University

No 907, Working Papers from University of Otago, Department of Economics

Abstract: In this paper we use experimental data collected in rural Cameroon to quantify the effect of social distance on trust and altruism. Our measure of social distance is one that is relevant to everyday economic interactions: subjects in a Trust Game play with fellow villagers or with someone from a different village. We find that Senders in a Trust Game pass significantly more money to Recipients from their own village than to Recipients from a different village. To test for the possibility that Senders are motivated by unconditional kindness, they also play a Triple Dictator Game. We find that Senders pass significantly more money on average in the Trust Game than in the Triple Dictator Game, confirming that transfers in the Trust Game are partly motivated by Trust. However, there is also a social distance effect in the Triple Dictator Game, and around one third of the social distance effect in the Trust Game is due to greater unconditional kindness to fellow villagers. Results from a Risk Game suggest that Trust Game transfers are uncorrelated with attitudes to risk.

Keywords: Experiment; Trust Game; Dictator Game; Risk Game; Social distance; Cameroon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 O12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2009-07, Revised 2009-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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http://www.otago.ac.nz/economics/research/otago077122.pdf First version, 2009 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does trust extend beyond the village? Experimental trust and social distance in Cameroon (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:otg:wpaper:0907

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