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Trust and Trustworthiness among Economics Majors

Author

Listed:
  • Utteeyo Dasgupta

    (Franklin and Marshall College)

  • Arjun Menon

    (Franklin and Marshall College; NERA Economic Consulting)

Abstract

We use a simple trust-game to elicit trusting and trustworthy behavior among students majoring in economics and other disciplines. We also administer a Social Values Orientation (SVO) survey to evaluate any possible correlation between an individual's levels of trust indicated in the survey and his/her action in the game. Our results suggest that although students pursuing a major in economics appear to be no different than other students in choosing trusting actions, when it comes to being trustworthy, the former group always chooses the self payoff maximizing action rather than the trustworthy action. Scores from the SVO survey do not help in predicting trusting or trustworthy behavior in our experiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Utteeyo Dasgupta & Arjun Menon, 2011. "Trust and Trustworthiness among Economics Majors," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 2799-2815.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-11-00596
    as

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    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2011/Volume31/EB-11-V31-I4-P252.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Abel FRANCOIS & Laurent WEILL & Nicolas EBER, 2022. "Economists are born and raised, not made," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2022-07, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    3. Fabian Kleine & Manfred Königstein & Balázs Rozsnyói, 2018. "Voluntary Leadership and Asymmetric Endowments in the Investment Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-21, July.
    4. Uwe Dulleck & Jonas Fooken & Yumei He, 2013. "Gender and other determinants of trust and reciprocity in an experimental labour market amongst Chinese students," QuBE Working Papers 012, QUT Business School.
    5. Haucap, Justus & Müller, Andrea, 2014. "Why are economists so different? Nature, nurture, and gender effects in a simple trust game," DICE Discussion Papers 136, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    6. Yumei He & Jonas Fooken & Uwe Dulleck, 2015. "Facing a changing labour force in China: Determinants of trust and reciprocity in an experimental labour market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(3), pages 1525-1530.
    7. Simon Niklas Hellmich, 2019. "Are People Trained in Economics “Different,†and if so, Why? A Literature Review," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 64(2), pages 246-268, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trust; Trustworthiness; Major of Study; Social Value Orientation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments

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