What do trust and the economy have to do with each other? In a world of perfect and symmetric information, where all related economic actions are simultaneous and occur in one place, the economy runs in the familiar fashion of the perfectly competitive market. In such a world, trust among...

In the one-shot trust or investment game without opportunities for reputation formation or contracting, economic theory predicts no trusting because there is no incentive for trustworthiness. Under these conditions, theory predicts (a) no effect of pre-play communication, and (b) universal...

We conduct a dictator game experiment in which recipients in an initial game become dictators in a second game. When the subjects paired remain the same, the amount sent back is strongly correlated with the amount received, despite the fact that the interaction is anonymous and is known to be...

We conduct dictator game experiments in which women and men are allowed to split $10 with a completely unknown person or a person of known gender. Subjects also complete personal background surveys, personality tests, and a cognitive test. We find that (a) gender information significantly...