Factors of Individual's Generalized Trust

• Main Authors: CHEN, YAN-JHEN, 陳彥甄
• Other Authors: CHANG, WEN-CHUN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/48602082528358483856

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 財政學系 === 96 === Generalized trust is a propensity of people in a society to cooperate and generate socially efficient outcomes. It often can enhance government efficiency and economic performance. In addition, generalized trust is an indispensable social capital for producing the collective benefits of the society. Based on the model of optimal social capital investment developed by Glaeser et al. (2002), this study empirically investigates the determinants of generalized trust for the case of Taiwan. From the estimations of ordinary least square model (OLS) and ordered probit model, the empirical results of this studies show that the participation of social activities and the interaction with neighbors are important factors for the accumulation of trust. Furthermore, educational attainment and income are positively correlated with the level of trust, but divorced and employed people are less likely to trust others. It is also found that different types of social groups have different effects on the accumulation of trust. Participations in religious and charitable groups can improve the level of trust, but participations in political activities and protesting activities are negatively associated with the level of trust. The potential problem of endogeneity between group participation and generalized trust can be overcome by using instrumental variables in the estimations when more data are available in the future.