A long-standing - although not uncontested - view is that violent conflicts reduce average levels of trust. Other theoretical and empirical work emphasizes discriminatory effects, namely that conflicts may enhance ingroup trust and erode out-group trust. The present study combines a trust game...

How does conflict exposure affect trust? We hypothesize that direct (firsthand) experience with conflict induces parochialism: trust towards out-groups worsens, but trust towards in-groups, owing to positive experiences of kin solidarity, may improve. Indirect exposure to conflict through...

This paper contributes to the literature by carrying out the first econometric investigation into the role of television in the formation of political consensus in Italy. Based on probit and instrumental variables estimates, we find trust in television to be the most significant predictor of...

While the tradeoff between market failure and government failure has been explored both theoretically and in practical policy design, the question of whether this trade-off appears in the calculus of citizens' demands for government regulation remains underexplored. We first clarify the channels...

While the tradeoff between market failure and government failure has been explored both theoretically and in practical policy design, the question of whether this trade-off appears in the calculus of citizens’ demands for government regulation remains underexplored. We first clarify the...

We investigate the relationship between religion and trust. Using a questionnaire, we measure: i) general religiosity, and; ii) the extent of religious beliefs, experience, and ritual. These are then analyzed with behaviour in a trust game (Berg et al., Games and Economic Behaviour, 1995), which...

Previous work has found that in social dilemmas, the selfish always free-ride, while others will cooperate if they expect their peers to do so as well. Outcomes may thus depend on conditional cooperators’ beliefs about the number of selfish types. An early round of the game may be played...

In Switzerland, two key church institutions the Conference of Swiss Bishops (CSB) and the Federation of Protestant Churches (FPC) make public recommendations on how to vote for certain referenda. We leverage this unique situation to directly measure religious organizations power to shape human...

We propose that religion impacts trust and trustworthiness in ways that depend on how individuals are socially identified and connected. Religiosity and religious affiliation may serve as markers for statistical discrimination. Further, affiliation to the same religion may enhance group...