Trust and beliefs among Europeans: Cross-country evidence on perceptions and behavior

Arbeitspapier

We conduct an experimental study among European citizens regarding cross-cultural perceptions related to trust in two dimensions: volunteerism and honesty. We use representative samples from five major economies of the Euro area: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. We find that European citizens rely on nationality to infer behavior. Assessments of behavior show a north/south pattern in which participants from northern countries are perceived to be more honest and to provide more effort in a volunteering game than are participants from southern countries. Actual behavior is, however, not always in line with these assessments. Assessments of honesty show strong evidence of social projection: Participants expect other European citizens to be less honest if they are culturally closer to themselves. Assessments of volunteerism instead show a similar north/south-pattern in which both northern and southern Europeans expect higher performance of northerners than they do of southerners.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IWQW Discussion Papers ; No. 04/2015

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design ; Expectations; Speculations ; Field Experiments ; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
• Subject: Cross-cultural perceptions ; Europe ; Honesty ; Real effort ; Representative experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Dieckmann, Anja ; Fischbacher, Urs ; Grimm, Veronika ; Unfried, Matthias ; Utikal, Verena ; Valmasoni, Lorenzo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Institut für Wirtschaftspolitik und Quantitative Wirtschaftsforschung (IWQW)
• (where): Nürnberg
• (when): 2015

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/110591
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET