Understanding Trust

34 Pages Posted: 5 Jun 2008

See all articles by Paola Sapienza

Paola Sapienza

Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management - Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Anna Toldrà-Simats

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Luigi Zingales

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Multiple version iconThere are 4 versions of this paper

Date Written: September 2007

Abstract

Several papers study the effect of trust by using the answer to the World Values Survey (WVS) question "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people?" to measure the level of trust. Glaeser et al. (2000) question the validity of this measure by showing that it is not correlated with senders' behaviour in the standard trust game, but only with his trustworthiness. By using a large sample of German households, Fehr et al. (2003) find the opposite result: WVS-like measures of trust are correlated with the sender's behaviour, but not with its trustworthiness. In this paper we resolve this puzzle by recognizing that trust has two components: a belief-based one and a preference based one. While the sender behaviour's reflects both, we show that WVS-like measures capture mostly the belief-based component, while questions on past trusting behaviour are better at capturing the preference component of trust.

Keywords: Trust, trust game, trustworthiness

JEL Classification: G10, G30, Z10

Suggested Citation

Sapienza, Paola and Toldrà Simats, Anna and Zingales, Luigi, Understanding Trust (September 2007). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP6462, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1138575

Paola Sapienza (Contact Author)

Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management - Department of Finance ( email )

Evanston, IL 60208
United States
847-491-7436 (Phone)
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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Anna Toldrà Simats

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid ( email )

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Spain

Luigi Zingales

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

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Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-3196 (Phone)
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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United Kingdom

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

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1000 Brussels
Belgium

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