A sticky trait: Social trust among Swedish expatriates in countries with varying institutional quality

Andreas Bergh and Richard Öhrvall ()

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2018, vol. 46, issue 4, 1146-1157

Abstract: Social trust is linked to many desirable economic and social outcomes. Using new data from a representative sample of 2668 Swedish expatriates, we examine the robustness of high social trust in countries with different levels of institutional quality. The results suggest that individual trust decreases with length of stay in countries with high corruption and low rule of law. The effect is relatively small and driven by expatriates who were aged 30 years or below upon arrival to the new country. While other studies have found that trust among migrants adapts to destination country trust levels, we find that after the (approximate) age of 30, high trust is a sticky personality trait. 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.

Keywords: Social trust; Institutions; Corruption; Rule of law; Migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 P48 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:46:y:2018:i:4:p:1146-1157

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2018.06.002

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