THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF TRUST

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Butler, Jeffrey V.; Giuliano, Paola; Guiso, Luigi
• 署名单位: Louisiana State University System; Louisiana State University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12178
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1155-1180
• 关键词: false consensus; social-perception; egocentric bias; culture

摘要

We investigate the relationship between individual trust and individual economic performance. We find that individual income is hump-shaped in a measure of intensity of trust beliefs. Our interpretation is that highly trusting individuals tend to assume too much social risk and to be cheated more often, ultimately performing less well than those with a belief close to the mean trustworthiness of the population. However, individuals with overly pessimistic beliefs avoid being cheated, but give up profitable opportunities, therefore underperforming. The cost of either too much or too little trust is comparable to the income lost by forgoing college. Our findings hold in large-scale international survey data, as well as inside a country with high-quality institutions, and are also supported by experimental findings.