Witchcraft Beliefs and the Erosion of Trust: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond

This paper examines the relationship between witchcraft beliefs, a deep-rooted cultural phenomenon, and trust, an integral element of social capital. We argue that witchcraft beliefs erode trust and cooperation and exploit novel survey data from nineteen countries of Sub-Saharan Africa to test this hypothesis. We establish a robust negative association between regional prevalence of witchcraft beliefs and various measures of trust which holds after accounting for country fixed effects as well as potential confounding factors and conventional determinants of trust at the individual, regional, and ethnic-group levels. Additional evidence spanning societies and countries beyond Africa lends further support for the potentially significant role of witchcraft beliefs in generating persistent norms of mistrust. Specifically, in preindustrial communities where witchcraft beliefs are important the norms of mistrust and self-reliance are inculcated since childhood. Furthermore, second-generation immigrants in Europe whose parents were born in countries with widespread witchcraft beliefs are generally less trusting.