Determinants of generalized trust: A cross-country comparison

“Growing evidence suggest that trust attitudes, like other cultural traits, can persist for surprisingly long periods of time at national and sub-national levels (Bjørnskov, 2007), with regional differences shaped by past political and social developments (Tabellini, 2010).”

“…to correlate acceptably well across countries with a number of indicators of levels of trustworthiness, such as the proportion of wallets returned intact in wallet-dropping experiments (Bjørnskov 2007), or the prevalence of corruption (Uslaner 2002) and of violent crime (Lederman et al. 2002).”

“A stream of he existing literature attempts to explain the sources of crash isk through financial market mechanisms, from the leverage efect 6 ( Black, 1976; Christie, 1982 ) to the volatility feedback effect 7 Pindyck, 1984; French et al., 1987; Campbell and Hentschel, 1992 ) o the stochastic bubbles model 8 ( Blanch…”

“Bjørnskov (2007) draws, for example, on the World Values Survey and the Danish Social Capital Survey to show that ethnic heterogeneity across 76 countries is not significantly related to the proportion of a country’s respondents identified as trusting, a finding that is confirmed by a study with…”

“Based on the literature, we also expect that highly educated people and those with a steady form of employment or a secure income will tend to be more trusting (Bjørnskov, 2006).”

“Similar patterns have been found in other countries (Bjørnskov, 2006; Helliwell and Wang, 2010).”

“Algan and Cahuc (2010) and Bjørnskov (2006) show that national-level social trust is remarkably stable over time.”

“Indeed, Bjørnskov (2007) confirms that populations in monarchies are significantly more trusting.”

“As the set of instrumental variables estimates in Bjornskov (2007a) reject the opposite causal direction,”

“Bergh and Bjørnskov (2011) show that countries with higher trust levels are more prone to have larger welfare states so reducing inequality; alternatively one may argue that higher trust might lead to better institutions and better-performing markets and these, in turn, might favour a more equitable income generation…”

“Empirically the cultural perspective has found considerable support in studies showing a high degree of stability in trust over time across nations (Bjørnskov, 2006) as well as over the life course of individuals (Claibourn and Martin, 2000).”

“At the national and sub-national levels, for example, trust scores are remarkably stable over several decades (Bjørnskov, 2007). At the individual level, this persistence is generally attributed to intergenerational transmission operating through genetics, imitation, or deliberate inculcation by parents. This view is…”

“Bjornskov (2007) builds on Max Weber’s insight that general trust should be higher in non-hierarchical religions that promote a sense of individualized responsibility.”

“Both points are emphasized in Bjørnskov (2007a) that show how few results from the previous literature on the determinants of social trust survive addressing these problems. as the latter is correlated with GDP per capita (r=.47 in the present sample).”

“…Uslaner (2002) finds that social trust as opposed to particularized trust must be defined as the expectation that most people can be trusted to follow a set of common norms, i.e. as trust “being extended to people on whom the trusting part has no direct information” (Bjørnskov, 2007, 2).”

“25 Alesina and La Ferrara 2002; Bjørnskov 2007; Delhey and Newton 2005; Dincer 2011; Hooghe et al. 2009; Putnam 2007; Stolle, Soroka, and Johnston 2008.”

“As noted by Bjørnskov (2006), measures of trust are quite stable over time.”

“…those who do not follow the dictates of the 19 Although this measure has been criticized for its vagueness, a number of studies show that respondents perceive this question as a measure of trust in people in general (Bjørnskov 2007, 2010; Newton 2007). prelates (cf. Klosko 2000 and Bjørnskov 2007).”

“Monarchs may thus provide a role model, and contribute to keeping adverse tendencies under control, in a way that other types of regime, such as temporary presidencies, are unable to do (Bjørnskov, 2007).”

“In contrast, authors like Putnam (1993), Inglehart (1997), Uslaner (2002), Knack (2003) and Bjørnskov (2007) claim that social trust is basically a cultural feature of society, in the sense that it is considered a deep-held value, which is transmitted across generations through socialisation…”

“Trust is trendless in most other countries (Bjørnskov, 2007; Uslaner, 2008).”

“Second, as trusting societies also tend to be more equal not least in economic terms (Uslaner, 2002; Bjørnskov, 2006), the positive influence on trust of moving to a high-trust country may stem from feelings of equality of opportunity and greater social solidarity.”

“While recent studies of the determinants of trust suggest that trust is not associated with ethnic diversity (Anderson and Paskeviciute, 2006; Bjørnskov, 2007), we nonetheless make sure that the association between trust and TFP is not driven by a simple accounting issue by controlling for the size…”

“Closely related literature examines the importance of trust in large organizations (La Porta et al. (1997)), measuring trust using experiments (Glaeser et al., 2000) or the determinants of trust (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002, or Bjornskov, 2006).”

“Renquin is an honor code that entails a negative attitude towards being in debt, both socially and financially, which Buchan and Croson (2004) see as a special and important influence on cooperation and trust. Guanxi denotes personal networks that, according to King (1991), also fill an important function for cooperat…”

“On the other hand, it has been argued that the question reasonably captures the underlying theoretical concept of ‘‘trust in strangers’’; that the results have proven to be stable over time on the aggregate level; and that they are in accordance with other measurements of trust (Uslaner 2002; Bjornskov 2006 ).”

“…diversity, and the quality of state institutions are often emphasized as important explanations (Brehm and Rahn, 1997; Delhey and Newton, 2003, 2005; Rothstein and Uslaner 2005; Bjørnskov, 2006, 2008; Rothstein and Stolle, 2008; Dinesen and Sønderskov, 2012a; Dinesen, 2013; Nannestad et al., 2014).”

“Other scholars sometimes use the term “generalised trust” to denote the same phenomenon (Bjørnskov, 2007; Prize et al., 2016).”

“While some research does address this issue, such as Berggren and Jordahl (2006), Bergh and Bjornskov (2011), Bjornskov (2007, 2010) , Brehm and Rahn (1997), Knack (2002), Paxton (2002), and Tabellini (2007), very little of this work uses structural equation models to reach a verdict concerning the relationship betwee…”

“Although this single-item, dichotomous measure of generalized trust is problematic (29), studies have found it to be related to other valid and relevant variables (30, 31).”

“The two religion variables capture shares of people who belong to a hierarchical religion, and it could be that identification with such a religion tends to decrease tolerance of those who do not follow the dictates of the prelates (Klosko, 2000; Bjørnskov, 2007).”

“Life satisfaction (happiness) variables Bjornskov et al. (2007) data (SWL) 42.”

“Bjørnskov (2010) shows empirically that public officials are more honest and therefore more trustworthy in societies with high trust.”

“For instance, Bjørnskov (2007) considers several potential determinants of cross-country differences in trust.”

“On the other hand, lower levels of prosocial behavior in Eastern Europe compared to the overall sample might be explained by lower levels of social trust that has previously been observed in post-communist countries (e.g., Bjørnskov, 2007, 2021).”

“Eric Uslaner associates the survey results from China with ‘the hazards of conducting survey research in a country that Freedom House places at the bottom of its rankings in both political and civil liberties’ (Uslaner, 2002, p. 226; also Bjørnskov, 2005; 2006).”

“Some studies have found the level of social trust to vary with age (Putnam, 2000) and others with race and education (Bjørnskov, 2007; Putnam, 1995; Uslaner, 2002: ch. 4).”

“Before too long, economists and political scientists probed into other detrimental consequences of diversity, including generalized trust (Bjornskov, 2004; Glennerster et al., 2013; Knack & Keefer, 1997; Soroka, Banting, & Johnston, 2002) and social capital (Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000; Putnam,…”

“Uslaner (2002, p. 220) and Bjørnskov (2006) argue that the Chinese results should be excluded because they represent an outlier.”

“Thus, according to Bjørnskov (2007, 16), religious differences matter for trust and in particular, having large Catholic and Muslim shares of a population tends to reduce it.”

“Moreover, schooling might have an important socialization effect that may give young people a more positive attitude towards people in general (Bjørnskov, 2007).”

“, the trust in people outside one’s social circle [4].”

“, Bailamoune-Lutz and Addison (2007), Bjørnskov and Kurrild-Klitgaard (2008) and Méon et al.”

“In addition, placing emphasis on group identities is likely to be associated with reduced trust across groups and there is also evidence that trust falls with rising inequality (Rothstein and Uslaner 2005; Bjørnskov 2007).”

“However, spatial patterns of trust change very slowly (Bjørnskov, 2007) and therefore the problem arising from timing may be limited in our context.”

“In the political and sociological sciences, much of our knowledge about the origins of trust (see Bjørnskov, 2007; Delhey and Newton, 2005; Fairbrother and Martin, 2013; Glanville et al., 2013; Herreros, 2004; Paxton, 2002, 2007; Robbins, 2012b; Wilkes, 2011) is derived from a small number of…”

“Summarizing their study, they conclude in accordance with Bjørnskov (2006) that ‘‘trust… is an essential element of life satisfaction’’ (Leung et al. 2011, p. 452).”