Groups and trust: Experimental evidence on the Olson and Putnam hypotheses

Giacomo Degli Antoni () and Gianluca Grimalda

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2016, vol. 61, issue C, 38-54

Abstract: Mancur Olson and Robert Putnam provide two conflicting views on the effect of involvement with voluntary associations on their members. Putnam argues that associations instill in their members habits of cooperation, solidarity and public spiritedness. Olson emphasizes the tendency of groups to pursue private interests and lobby for preferential policies. We carry out the first field experiment involving a sample of members of different association types from different age groups and education levels, as well as a demographically comparable sample of non-members. This enables us to examine the differential patterns of behavior followed by members of Putnam-type and Olson-type associations. Coherently with both the Putnam's and Olson's view, we find that members of Putnam-type (Olson-type) associations display more (no more) generalized trust than non-members. However, when we examine trustworthy behavior we find the opposite pattern, with members of Olson-type (Putnam-type) associations more (no more) trustworthy than non-members. No systematic effect for the intensity of participation in associations emerges. We analyze the issue of self-selection through a structural equation model. This supports the view that membership has a significant effect on prosociality.

Keywords: Trust; Voluntary associations; Putnam; Olson; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 C93 D03 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804316000161
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Groups and trust: Experimental evidence on the Olson and Putnam hypotheses (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:61:y:2016:i:c:p:38-54

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2016.01.006

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().