ABSTRACT

The literature on social capital and its economic implications shows that trust plays a significant role in the transaction of goods and services. However, few studies empirically investigate the evolution of trust over time. In this paper, we show how individuals’ trust in Pakistan is affected by the persistent shock of terrorism. By matching the country representative survey data with district-level terrorist attacks, we observe that exposure to terrorism is associated with lower levels of interpersonal trust. This finding is robust to various robustness checks including different indicators of terrorism risk and trust. Furthermore, our results are also consistent with the IV identification strategy.

摘要

关于社会资本及其经济意义的文献表明，信任在商品和服务交易中发挥着重要作用。然而，很少有研究实证研究信任随时间的演变。在本文中，我们展示了个人对巴基斯坦的信任如何受到持续的恐怖主义冲击的影响。通过将国家代表调查数据与地区级恐怖袭击相匹配，我们观察到接触恐怖主义与较低水平的人际信任有关。这一发现对于包括恐怖主义风险和信任的不同指标在内的各种稳健性检查都是稳健的。此外，我们的结果也与 IV 识别策略一致。