vtaiwan

voxeu.org

Trust in fast and slow decisions

Trust is important for the economy. Empirical research from Zak and Knack (2001) to Algan and Cahuc (2010) has established that changes in trust over the 20th century explain much of the evolution of economic development for many countries. But we do not trust others universally, or unconditionally. Our trust in others depends on our belief about what they will do to us when we trust them. For this reason, we often devote substantial resources to evaluate the trustworthiness of our partners, either about their identity (DeSteno et al.