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Who Trusts Others? Community and Individual Determinants of Social Capital in a Low-Income Country

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  • M. Niaz Asadullah

Abstract

This study presents new evidence on individual and community-specific determinants of social trust using data from 96 villages in Bangladesh. We find perceived institutional trust to be positively correlated with stated inter-personal trust. At the same time, there is significant social distance among various faith groups in our data: both Hindus and Muslims trust their coreligionists more than they trust those from other religions. Moreover, Hindus trust Christians, Buddhists and NGO workers more than Muslims, and are not distrustful of the wider society.Trust towards non-Muslims is negatively correlated with Islamic school attendance among Muslim respondents, while religiosity tends not to play any role. Compared to religion, the effects of institutional trust and local economic development are modest. These findings are robust to control for a range of individual- and community-level correlates, and enumerator fixed effects.

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  • M. Niaz Asadullah, 2017. "Who Trusts Others? Community and Individual Determinants of Social Capital in a Low-Income Country," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 41(2), pages 515-544.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:41:y:2017:i:2:p:515-544.
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    Cited by:

    1. Md. Shahriar Islam & Rifat Mahmud, 2015. "Trust in Governance in Bangladesh: Ideas, Issues and Solutions," Millennial Asia, , vol. 6(2), pages 128-146, October.
    2. Christian Alexander Belabed & Mariya Hake, 2018. "Income inequality and trust in national governments in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe," Working Papers 222, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bangladesh; Hindu; Institutions; Religion; Trust;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

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