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Who are Your Joneses? Socio-Specific Income Inequality and Trust

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  • Fabian Stephany

    (University of Cambridge and Vienna University of Economics and Business)

Abstract

Trust is a good approach to explain the functioning of markets, institutions or society as a whole. It is a key element in almost every commercial transaction over time and might be one of the main explanations of economic success and development. Trust diminishes the more we perceive others to have economically different living realities. In most of the relevant contributions, scholars have taken a macro perspective on the inequality-trust linkage, with an aggregation of both trust and inequality on a country level. However, patterns of within-country inequality and possibly influential determinants, such as perception and socioeconomic reference, remained undetected. This paper offers the opportunity to look at the interplay between inequality and trust at a more refined level. A measure of (generalized) trust emerges from ESS 5 survey which asks “...generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”. With the use of 2009 EU-SILC data, measurements of income inequality are developed for age-specific groups of society in 22 countries. A sizable variation in inequality measures can be noticed. Even in low inequality countries, like Sweden, income imbalances within certain age groups have the potential to undermine social trust.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabian Stephany, 2017. "Who are Your Joneses? Socio-Specific Income Inequality and Trust," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 877-898, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:134:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-016-1460-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-016-1460-9
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    Cited by:

    1. Lourdes ROJAS RUBIO, 2022. "Inequality, Corruption and Support for Democracy," THEMA Working Papers 2022-20, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    2. Silvia Emili & Federica Galli, 2022. "Self-perceptions and perceptions of peers: their role in understanding expenditure behaviours," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 4573-4597, December.
    3. Stephany, Fabian, 2019. "Whose Realm, His Trust - Regional Disparities of Generalized Trust in Europe," SocArXiv 7f5pk, Center for Open Science.
    4. Stephany, Fabian & Braesemann, Fabian & Graham, Mark, 2019. "Coding Together - Coding Alone: The Role of Trust in Collaborative Programming," SocArXiv 8rf2h, Center for Open Science.
    5. Fabian Braesemann & Fabian Stephany, 2021. "Between Bonds and Bridges: Evidence from a Survey on Trust in Groups," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 111-128, January.
    6. Lorenz, Hanno & Stephany, Fabian, 2018. "Back to the future: Changing job profiles in the digital age," Working Papers 13, Agenda Austria.
    7. Md. Shahidul Islam & Khurshed Alam, 2018. "Does social capital reduce poverty? A cross-sectional study of rural household in Bangladesh," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 45(11), pages 1515-1532, August.
    8. Georg Kanitsar, 2022. "The Inequality-Trust Nexus Revisited: At What Level of Aggregation Does Income Inequality Matter for Social Trust?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 171-195, August.
    9. Darius, Philipp & Stephany, Fabian, 2019. "Twitter "Hashjacked": Online Polarisation Strategies of Germany's Political Far-Right," SocArXiv 6gbc9, Center for Open Science.
    10. Braesemann, Fabian & Stephany, Fabian, 2019. "United in Diversity? An Empirical Investigation on Europe's Regional Social Capital," SocArXiv esgra, Center for Open Science.
    11. Stephany, Fabian, 2020. "It's Not Only Size That Matters: Trust and E-Government Success in Europe," SocArXiv cqfhr, Center for Open Science.
    12. Fabian Stephany & Hanno Lorenz, 2021. "The Future of Employment Revisited: How Model Selection Determines Automation Forecasts," Papers 2104.13747, arXiv.org.
    13. Jiansong Zheng & Tulips Yiwen Wang & Tao Zhang, 2023. "The Extension of Particularized Trust to Generalized Trust: The Moderating Role of Long-term Versus Short-term Orientation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 166(2), pages 269-298, April.

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