Consequences of social trust are comparatively well studied, while its societal determinants are often subject to debate. This paper studies both in the context of Catalan attempts to secede from Spain: First, we test whether Catalonia enjoys higher levels of social capital that it is prevented from capitalizing on. Second, the paper examines whether secessionist movements create animosity and political divisions within society that undermine trust. Employing the nine available waves of the European Social Survey for Spain, we only find weak indications that social trust levels are higher in Catalonia than in the rest of the country. Interestingly, we further find testimony of a purely transient “exuberance effect” after secession became a real option, indicating that the long-run evolution of social trust may best be thought of as a stable punctuated equilibrium.

中文翻译：

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社会信任中变化与稳定的经济学：来自（和支持）加泰罗尼亚分离的证据

社会信任的后果得到了比较充分的研究，而其社会决定因素经常受到争论。本文在加泰罗尼亚试图脱离西班牙的背景下进行了研究：首先，我们测试加泰罗尼亚是否享有更高水平的社会资本，而这是阻止它利用的。其次，本文考察了分裂主义运动是否会在社会内部造成破坏信任的敌意和政治分歧。使用西班牙欧洲社会调查的九个可用浪潮，我们只发现加泰罗尼亚的社会信任水平高于该国其他地区的微弱迹象。有趣的是，我们进一步发现了在分离成为现实选择之后纯粹短暂的“繁荣效应”的证据，