Trust and its determinants: Evidence from the Trustlab experiment

Fabrice Murtin, Lara Fleischer, Vincent Siegerink, Arnstein Aassve, Yann Algan, Romina Boarini, Santiago González, Zsuzsanna Lonti, Gianluca Grimalda, Rafael Hortala Vallve, Soonhee Kim, David Lee, Louis Putterman and Conal Smith
Additional contact information
Lara Fleischer: OECD
Vincent Siegerink: OECD
Arnstein Aassve: Bocconi University
Romina Boarini: OECD
Santiago González: OECD
Zsuzsanna Lonti: OECD
Rafael Hortala Vallve: London School of Economics
Soonhee Kim: Korea Development Institute
David Lee: Korea Development Institute
Conal Smith: OECD

No 2018/2, OECD Statistics Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This paper describes the results of an international initiative on trust (Trustlab) run in six OECD countries between November 2016 and November 2017 (France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Slovenia and the United States). Trustlab combines cutting-edge techniques drawn from behavioural science and experimental economics with an extensive survey on the policy and contextual determinants of trust in others and trust in institutions, administered to representative samples of participants. The main results are as follows: 1) Self-reported measures of trust in institutions are validated experimentally, 2) Self-reported measures of trust in others capture a belief about trustworthiness (as well as altruistic preferences), whereas experimental measures rather capture willingness to cooperate and one’s own trustworthiness. Therefore, both measures are loosely related, and should be considered complementary rather than substitutes; 3) Perceptions of institutional performance strongly correlate with both trust in government and trust in others; 4) Perceived government integrity is the strongest determinant of trust in government; 5) In addition to indicators associated with social capital, such as neighbourhood connectedness and attitudes towards immigration, perceived satisfaction with public services, social preferences and expectations matter for trust in others; 6) There is a large scope for policy action, as an increase in all significant determinants of trust in government by one standard deviation may be conducive to an increase in trust by 30 to 60%.

Keywords: cooperative games; implicit association test; no cooperative games; trust; trust in institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-06-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-knm and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:stdaaa:2018/2-en

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