To What Extent Do Latin Americans Trust, Reciprocate, and Cooperate?: Evidence from Experiments in Six Latin American Countries

Abstract

This paper explores the extent to which individuals trust, reciprocate, cooperate, and pool risk. We use a battery of field experiments containing the trust game, the voluntary contribution mechanism, and the risk-pooling game, which we apply in six capital cities in Latin America. A salient feature of the paper is that the data is representative of the population from the six cities: Bogota, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Montevideo, Lima, and San Jose. The results support three findings: the propensity to trust and cooperate among Latin Americans is, on average, remarkably similar to that found in other regions of the world; expectations about the behavior of other players are the main driver of trust, reciprocity. and cooperation; and the behaviors associated with socialization, trust, and cooperation are strongly linked among them.