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Does trust extend beyond the village? Experimental trust and social distance in Cameroon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Alvin Etang ,
David Fielding  and
Stephen Knowles
Alvin Etang
Affiliation:
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
David Fielding*
Affiliation:
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Stephen Knowles
Affiliation:
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
*
e-mail: david.fielding@otago.ac.nz
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Abstract

In this paper we use experimental data from rural Cameroon to quantify the effect of social distance on trust and altruism. Our measure of social distance is relevant to everyday economic interactions: subjects in a Trust Game play with fellow villagers or with someone from a different village. We find that significantly more money is sent when the players are from the same village. Other factors that influence transfers at least as much as the same-village effect are gender, education and membership of rotating credit groups. To test whether Senders are motivated by altruism, they also play a Triple Dictator Game. Senders transfer significantly more money on average in the Trust Game than in the Triple Dictator Game. However, there is also a social distance effect in the Triple Dictator Game. Results from a Risk Game suggest that Trust Game transfers are uncorrelated with attitudes to risk.

Keywords

ExperimentTrust gameDictator gameRisk gameSocial distanceCameroon

JEL classification

O12: Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development C93: Field Experiments Z13: Economic Sociology • Economic Anthropology • Language • Social and Economic Stratification
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 15 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Economic Science Association 2010

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: 10.1007/s10683-010-9255-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Supplementary material: File

Etang et al. supplementary material

Examples Used in Explaining the Games (Translated from the Local Dialect)
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Etang et al. supplementary material

Behavior as Behaviour
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Etang et al. supplementary material

Table A3-1. Uncensored interval regressions
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