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Trade, Social Values, and the Generalized Trust
Author(s) -
Chan Kenneth S.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2007.tb00799.x
Subject(s) - openness to experience , inequality , globalization , conjecture , economics , distribution (mathematics) , world values survey , economic globalization , economic inequality , econometrics , social psychology , psychology , mathematics , mathematical analysis , pure mathematics , market economy
The present paper investigates, empirically, whether global economic integration can lead to national social disintegration, as proclaimed by Rodrik. One can perhaps conjecture that a drop in the generalized trust in a country may signal a rise in social disintegration. Using the survey data on the generalized trust provided by the World Values Surveys, the present paper finds that, in general, there is a positive openness‐trust relationship. However, when globalization undermines domestic income distribution, it will weaken this openness‐trust relationship. There is also evidence of a threshold inequality above which the openness‐trust relationship turns negative.