We experimentally investigate the effect of a negative endowment shock that can cause inequality in a trust game. Our goal is to assess whether different causes of inequality have different effects on trust and trustworthiness. In our trust game, we vary whether there is inequality (in favor of the second mover) or not and whether the inequality results from a random negative shock (i.e., the outcome of a die roll) or exists from the outset. Our findings suggest that inequality causes first-movers to send more of their endowment and second-movers to return more. However, we do not find support for the hypothesis that the cause of the inequality matters. Behavior after the occurrence of a random shock is not significantly different from the behavior in treatments where the inequality exists from the outset. Our results highlight the need to be cautious when interpreting the effects on trust and trustworthiness of negative random shocks in the field (such as natural disasters). Our results suggest that these effects are primarily driven by the inequality caused by the shock and not by any of the additional characteristics of the shock, like saliency or uncertainty.

我们通过实验研究了可能导致信任博弈中不平等的负面禀赋冲击的影响。我们的目标是评估不平等的不同原因是否对信任和可信度有不同的影响。在我们的信任游戏中，我们会改变是否存在不平等（有利于第二个推动者）以及不平等是由随机负面冲击（即掷骰子的结果）引起还是从一开始就存在。我们的研究结果表明，不平等导致先行者送出更多的禀赋，而后动者则返回更多。然而，我们没有找到支持不平等的原因很重要的假设。随机冲击发生后的行为与从一开始就存在不平等的治疗中的行为没有显着差异。我们的结果强调了在解释现场负面随机冲击（例如自然灾害）对信任和可信度的影响时需要谨慎。我们的结果表明，这些影响主要是由冲击造成的不平等所驱动，而不是由冲击的任何其他特征（如显着性或不确定性）驱动。