TY - JOUR
T1 - Trust, assurance, and inequality
T2 - A rational choice model of mutual trust
AU - Sato, Yoshimichi
N1 - Funding Information:
1Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Chicago, Mathematical Sociology in Japan and in America: A Joint Conference in Honolulu, and Sociological Colloquium Series at Cornell University. I am indebted to the audiences at these conferences, Satoshi Kanazawa, and Mattew Salganik for helpful comments. This research was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), No. 11410047, directed by Kazuo Misumi).
PY - 2002/1
Y1 - 2002/1
N2 - The rational choice approach to trust has three problems: it has not explicitly explained findings verified in social psychological study of trust; it stands on a limited assumption of asymmetric relationship between a truster and a trustee; and it has not dealt with situations in which a rich person encounters a poor person. We build a game theoretic model of mutual trust to solve these problems. Then we analyze an equilibrium of the model and derive some implications from it. That is, the ratio between the transaction costs and the opportunity costs affects actors' trustfulness; a more trustworthy actor finds it easier to leave his/her group in search of higher returns; and a rich actor is more willing to trust his/her counterpart than a poor actor.
AB - The rational choice approach to trust has three problems: it has not explicitly explained findings verified in social psychological study of trust; it stands on a limited assumption of asymmetric relationship between a truster and a trustee; and it has not dealt with situations in which a rich person encounters a poor person. We build a game theoretic model of mutual trust to solve these problems. Then we analyze an equilibrium of the model and derive some implications from it. That is, the ratio between the transaction costs and the opportunity costs affects actors' trustfulness; a more trustworthy actor finds it easier to leave his/her group in search of higher returns; and a rich actor is more willing to trust his/her counterpart than a poor actor.
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U2 - 10.1080/00222500210525
DO - 10.1080/00222500210525
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0036016123
SN - 0022-250X
VL - 26
SP - 1
EP - 16
JO - Journal of Mathematical Sociology
JF - Journal of Mathematical Sociology
IS - 1-2
ER -