Name of the Project
Is interpersonal trust derived from formal institutions or from social norms?
Lead researchers
Joaquín Morales, PhD
Soraya Román, PhD
Contact: joaquinmorales@upb.edu, sorayaroman@upb.edu
Summary
The object of this project is to explore if informal institutions are capable of enforcing contracts, generating trust towards the informal institution, and most importantly, to understand if derived from this trust emanates interpersonal trust, conductive to more investments and growth. The project intends to characterize this phenomenon by using two methodologies. First, we intend to develop a formal game-theoretical model that describes the effectiveness of formal and informal institutions, and then, test some of its predictions using lab-in-the-field interventions to measure interpersonal trust when agents are confronted to different institutions.