Trust and cooperation at a confluence of worlds: An experiment in Xinjiang, China

Zhe Zhang, Xu Zhang and Louis Putterman

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019, vol. 161, issue C, 128-144

Abstract: We study trust and willingness to cooperate among and between Uyghur and Han college students in Xinjiang, China. In our incentivized laboratory-style decision-making experiment, within and between group interactions occur among identifiable participants without traceability of individual decisions and without explicitly referencing ethnicity. We find that members of each ethnicity show favoritism towards those of their own ethnicity in both trust and cooperation and that communication enhances inter-ethnic cooperation significantly. Other results include that Uyghur and Han subjects behave differently in their willingness to cooperate relative to willingness to trust, consistent with a conjecture about cultural persistence and centuries-old differences in lifeway.

Keywords: Trust; Cooperation; Experiment; Culture; Ethnicity; Discrimination; Xinjiang (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D64 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: Trust and Cooperation at a Confluence of Worlds: An Experiment in Xinjiang, China (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:161:y:2019:i:c:p:128-144

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2019.03.001

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