Disinformation and Mutual Trust: An Economic Model

Information or disinformation is more likely to be believed if it comes from a trusted person or source. This means that the impact of disinformation will greatly differ depending on the level of trust. Moreover, one person’s judgement can be influenced by other people’s judgements, which conversely means that one person’s judgement can influence other people’s judgements. To examine this relationship, I construct a model of uncovering disinformation and combine it with a model of disinformation dissemination. I show that as the level of mutual trust in an economy (society) increases, the probability of uncovering disinformation increases, and a high level of mutual trust greatly restrains disinformation from being believed and accepted, which will consequently considerably increase efficiency in various aspects of economic activities. That is, mutual trust is an important factor to achieve high levels of economic, social, and perhaps political activities.