Economic Trust Research Articles

Generalized trust and wealth

The relation between economic inequality and trust is studied in a model where the ability to elicit trustworthiness from unrelated people depends on own wealth as well as the distribution and mean of population wealth. In equilibrium, the rich trust but betray while the poor do not trust but are trustworthy. Homogenizing wealth around its mean leads to a zero-trust outcome if mean wealth is sufficiently low, to full trust if mean wealth is large. More effective enforcement technologies increase, more effective counter-enforcement technologies decrease trust. Economic inequality reinforces itself through the trust and betray incentives it induces, suggesting a beneficial role for redistributive policies.

Association of Economic Internality With Saving Behavior and Motives, Financial Confidence, and Attitudes Toward State Intervention1

This study investigates economic locus of control (ELOC) in a Greek sample using Furnham's (1986) scale. In particular, it examines the association between ELOC and saving behavior and motives, attitudes toward state intervention in the economic field, and factors engendering confidence in economic matters. The main hypotheses predicted that internal ELOC should be associated with (a) desire for less state intervention; (b) confidence in factors under one's own control (knowing the other party in transactions, being well informed) more strongly than with other factors of economic trust, such as the state and the law; (c) more saving; and (d) that respondents with internal and external ELOC should be differentiated with respect to saving motives. Analysis was based on a sample of 135 participants from Athens. Principal components analysis of the Greek translation of Furnham's ELOC questionnaire gave results similar to those reported from England, yielding 4 factors interpretable as chance, internal, external/denial, and powerful others. The findings of the study include confirmation of all of the hypotheses.

Economics vs. values in political trust in Korea

This paper investigates the relationships between economic and/or value determinants and political trust using the 1985 Public Opinion Study for National Development in Korea conducted by the Korea Institute of Social Studies (KISS). Also examined are the relative effects of perceived personal financial situations and macro/collective economic conditions on levels of political trust to distinguish which one is more important in determining political trust in Korea. Results indicate that the trust in the political institutions and government performance depends on both personal financial security and national economic conditions. Equally important is the perception of how people think they have been treated. If Koreans perceive that they are being treated unfairly, they are likely to form, negative attitudes towards politics. We also found that, regardless of which party Koreans favor, if the government does not stabilize the economy, they do not hesitate to withdraw their support from it.

Gorbachev's Economic Advisors

Based substantially on extensive interviews in Moscow from 1984 to date and current literature as well, the paper traces the recent activities and environment of Secretary Gorbachev's intimate advisors on Soviet economy. Academicians Abel Aganbegyan, Oleg Bogomolov, Tat'yana Zaslavskaya, and Corresponding Member Leonid Abalkin, are singled out as leading members of an informal “economic brain trust.” The roles played by selected institutes of the Academy of Sciences and by its other reform-oriented members (e.g., Nikolay Petrakov and Stanislav Shatalin) are presented in light of Gorbachev's disenchantment with policies advocated by Gosplan or other orthodox state and party organizations. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 027, 054, 124.