Social trust is linked to many desirable economic and social outcomes, but the causality between trust and institutions is debated. Using new data from a representative sample of 2,668 Swedish expatriates (surveyed in the SOM Institute's Swedish Expatriate Survey 2014), we use variation in time...

The present paper analyzes determinants of confidence in public institutions. In both theoretical literature and empirical research, a link between social trust and institutional confidence has been established. The present paper casts additional light on this relationship. Our analysis also...

The paper studies the link between corruption and social capital (measured as trust), using data from a lab experiment. Subjects play either a harassment bribery game or a strategically identical but differently framed ultimatum game, followed by a trust game. In a second experiment, we elicit...

We estimate the cost of cultural biases in high-stake economic decisions by comparing agents' peer-to-peer lending choices with those the same agents make under the assistance of an automated robo-advisor. We first confirm substantial in-group vs. out-group and stereotypical discrimination,...

The economic success and innovative outcomes of the high performing East Asian countries, albeit often characterized as low-trust societies, suggests reexamination of the presumed positive relationship between social trust and innovation. Multi-level analyses conducted in this paper reveal that...