IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/baf/cbafwp/cbafwp20149.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fear of the dark: How terrorist events affect trust in the long run

Author

Listed:
  • Elisa Borghi
  • Michela Braga
  • Francesco Scervini

Abstract

In this paper, we provide new evidence on whether individuals differ in their level of trust depending on their exposure to unexpected terrorist attacks during crucial life phases. In line with the well-grounded psychological theories on the formation of human beliefs, attitudes, and values, we find that exposure to traumatic and violent events in the two essential stages of human development "adolescence and early adulthood" reduces trust in other people. The formed values tend to be persistent over time, and the results are robust to several checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Elisa Borghi & Michela Braga & Francesco Scervini, 2020. "Fear of the dark: How terrorist events affect trust in the long run," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 20149, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp20149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.unibocconi.it/baffic/baf/papers/cbafwp20149.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Conzo, Pierluigi & Salustri, Francesco, 2019. "A war is forever: The long-run effects of early exposure to World War II on trust," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    2. Zak, Paul J & Knack, Stephen, 2001. "Trust and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 295-321, April.
    3. Michal Bauer & Christopher Blattman & Julie Chytilová & Joseph Henrich & Edward Miguel & Tamar Mitts, 2016. "Can War Foster Cooperation?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 249-274, Summer.
    4. Guiso, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "People's opium? Religion and economic attitudes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 225-282, January.
    5. Alberto Abadie, 2006. "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 50-56, May.
    6. La Porta, Rafael, et al, 1997. "Trust in Large Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 333-338, May.
    7. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    8. Daniel Meierrieks & Thomas Gries, 2013. "Causality between terrorism and economic growth," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 50(1), pages 91-104, January.
    9. Shawn J. McCoy & Ian K. McDonough & Punarjit Roychowdhury, 2020. "The Impact of Terrorism on Social Capital: Evidence from the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Paris Shooting," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(3), pages 526-548, June.
    10. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2010. "Inherited Trust and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2060-2092, December.
    11. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2000. "The Determinants of Trust," NBER Working Papers 7621, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Giuseppe Albanese & Guido Blasio, 2014. "Who trusts others more? A cross-European study," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 803-820, November.
    13. Abel Brodeur, 2018. "The Effect of Terrorism on Employment and Consumer Sentiment: Evidence from Successful and Failed Terror Attacks," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 246-282, October.
    14. Emilio Colombo & Valentina Rotondi & Luca Stanca, 2022. "The Day After the Bomb: Well-Being Effects of Terrorist Attacks in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 115-132, February.
    15. S Brock Blomberg & Gregory D Hess & Daniel YJ Tan, 2011. "Terrorism and the Economics of Trust," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(3), pages 383-398, May.
    16. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2009. "Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1095-1131.
    17. Ernst Fehr, 2009. "On The Economics and Biology of Trust," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 235-266, 04-05.
    18. Konstantinos Drakos & Andreas Gofas, 2006. "The Devil You Know but Are Afraid to Face," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(5), pages 714-735, October.
    19. Nathan Nunn & Leonard Wantchekon, 2011. "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3221-3252, December.
    20. Christian Bjørnskov, 2007. "Determinants of generalized trust: A cross-country comparison," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 1-21, January.
    21. Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Liebert, Helge & Schulze, Günther G., 2011. "On the origin of domestic and international terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(S1), pages 17-36.
    22. Tarrow, Sidney, 1996. "Social Movements in Contentious Politics: A Review Article," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(4), pages 874-883, December.
    23. Gassebner, Martin & Jong-A-Pin, Richard & Mierau, Jochen O., 2008. "Terrorism and electoral accountability: One strike, you're out!," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 126-129, July.
    24. Paschalis Arvanitidis & Athina Economou & Christos Kollias, 2016. "Terrorism’s effects on social capital in European countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 231-250, December.
    25. Putnam, Robert David & Sander, Thomas H., 2010. "Still Bowling Alone? The Post-9/11 Split," Scholarly Articles 5341588, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    26. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/432sbils8u9t7qa99cii5psht1 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Paola Giuliano & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2014. "Growing up in a Recession," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 787-817.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bellani Luna & Fazio Andrea & Scervini Francesco, 2023. "Collective negative shocks and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Germany," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(2), pages 381-403, June.
    2. Andrea Fazio, 2024. "Protests, long-term preferences, and populism: Evidence from 1968 in Europe," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 920-944.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cline, Brandon N. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2016. "Trust and the regulation of corporate self-dealing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 572-590.
    2. Anger, Silke & Christoph, Bernhard & Galkiewicz, Agata & Margaryan, Shushanik & Peter, Frauke & Sandner, Malte & Siedler, Thomas, 2024. "War, international spillovers, and adolescents: Evidence from Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 181-193.
    3. Horváth, Roman, 2013. "Does trust promote growth?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 777-788.
    4. Perotti, Roberto & Labartino, Giovanna, 2011. "Academic Dynasties: Decentralization and Familism in the Italian Academia," CEPR Discussion Papers 8645, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Forte, Anabel & Peiró-Palomino, Jesús & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2015. "Does social capital matter for European regional growth?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 47-64.
    6. Spring, Eva & Grossmann, Volker, 2013. "Does Bilateral Trust Affect International Movement of Goods and Labor?," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79956, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Berggren, Niclas & Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov & Hellström, Jörgen, 2014. "Social trust and central-bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 425-439.
    8. Jo, Ara & Carattini, Stefano, 2021. "Trust and CO2 emissions: Cooperation on a global scale," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 922-937.
    9. Gioacchino Fazio & Francesca Giambona & Erasmo Vassallo & Elli Vassiliadis, 2018. "A Measure of Trust: The Italian Regional Divide in a Latent Class Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 209-242, November.
    10. Andrew C. Forrester & Alex Nowrasteh, 2023. "Trust plays no role in regional U.S. economic development—And five other problems with the trust literature," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(3), pages 461-477, August.
    11. Pascal Gantenbein & Axel Kind & Christophe Volonté, 2019. "Individualism and Venture Capital: A Cross-Country Study," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 741-777, October.
    12. Eva Spring & Volker Grossmann, 2016. "Does bilateral trust across countries really affect international trade and factor mobility?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 103-136, February.
    13. Peiró-Palomino, Jesús & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2013. "Can trust effects on development be generalized? A response by quantile," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 377-390.
    14. Nikolova, Milena & Popova, Olga & Otrachshenko, Vladimir, 2022. "Stalin and the origins of mistrust," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    15. Conzo, Pierluigi & Zotti, Roberto, 2020. "Blessed are the first: The long-term effect of birth order on trust," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    16. Seong Hee Kim, 2021. "Changes in Social Trust: Evidence from East German Migrants," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 959-981, June.
    17. Pevzner, Mikhail & Xie, Fei & Xin, Xiangang, 2015. "When firms talk, do investors listen? The role of trust in stock market reactions to corporate earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 190-223.
    18. Irena Grosfeld & Alexander Rodnyansky & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Persistent anti-market culture: A legacy of the Pale of Settlement and of the Holocaust," Working Papers w0145, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    19. Guiso, Luigi & Zingales, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola, 2010. "Civic Capital as the Missing Link," CEPR Discussion Papers 7757, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8lt2edmul9geov3cf3fqf7h92 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Martin G. Kocher, 2015. "How Trust in Social Dilemmas Evolves with Age," CESifo Working Paper Series 5447, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social capital; Trust; Terrorism; Value formation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp20149. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michela Pozzi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbbocit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.