We use a unique data set of trust game replications in order to validate the commonly used “trust” question from the World Values Survey. We find that trust as measured by the World Values Survey is positively correlated with experimentally measured trust and unrelated to experimentally...

High levels of general trust are critical to economic growth and the integration of firms into new markets, but what factors influence the willingness to trust strangers? I examine the circumstances under which individuals across different societies are willing to trust in anonymous counterparts...

We collect data from 162 replications of the Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe Investment game (the trust game) involving more than 23,000 participants. We conduct a meta-analysis of these games in order to identify the effect of experimental protocols and geographic variation on this popular...

When there are constantly new, valuable opportunities to transact with alternative partners a situation we refer to as exchange value uncertainty long-term or committed transactions among the same individuals are discouraged. But when opportunism creates exchange hazards, which escalate in...

The canonical principal-agent problem involves a risk-neutral principal who must use incentives to motivate a risk-averse agent to take a costly, unobservable action that improves the principal's payoff. The standard solution requires an inefficient shifting of risk to the agent. This paper,...