The role of trust in the 2008 financial crisis

Financial transactions require trust. This paper analyzes the role of trust in the context of the 2008 financial crisis. In order to find a role for trust, we need to find a role for trust in a standard economic model which differs from the rational expectation of the equilibrium outcome. It is argued that trust dropped dramatically in the Fall of 2008. The consequences and effects of this drop in trust are discussed.     

Inter-firm trust in buyer–supplier relations: Are knowledge spillovers and geographical proximity relevant?

This paper empirically examines the impact of knowledge spillovers and geographical proximity on inter-firm trust in buyer–supplier relations. In particular, the effects of incoming knowledge spillovers from vertically related firms and firms’ appropriability problems are analyzed. The results suggest that there is a positive relationship between incoming knowledge spillovers from business partners and the level of inter-firm trust. Firms’ appropriability problems, however, lead to a decrease in inter-firm trust. Firms that cannot protect their technical knowledge have a greater perception of customer (supplier) opportunism. Furthermore, estimation results indicate that inter-firm trust between geographically close partners exceeds inter-firm trust between distant partners.     

Uncertainty, power and trust

This paper suggests that personal trust is best understood as a discursively constructed social relation that arises when interaction between people is governed by the norm of reciprocity (according to which one good turn deserves another and that people should treat others as they themselves would like to be treated). It is argued that trust enables people to deal with their ignorance of the future and so act in a purposeful, goal-driven fashion even in the face of radical uncertainty. However, where there are imbalances of access to economic and cultural resources and to positions of authority, there may arise an imbalance of reciprocity, so that what appear to be relations of genuine trust may in fact be no more than a façade of trust that conceals a relationship of domination.     

Influence of time horizon and treatment patterns on cost-effectiveness measures: the case of allergen-specific immunotherapy with Grazax

Summary

This paper investigates the impact of treatment patterns on the cost effectiveness of GRAZAX® (grass allergen tablet) versus standard care in the management of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in Sweden. Two Grazax treatment patterns are considered: seasonal and World Health Organization (WHO)-recommended specific immunotherapy (SIT). The results are derived from a clinical trial and two model-based analyses. In contrast to the seasonal-use model, the model for WHO-recommended SIT treatment extrapolates the cost of Grazax non-linearly. This is the main methodological distinction between the two analyses. Grazax is cost effective both for WHO-recommended SIT treatment and seasonal treatment, with WHO-recommended SIT treatment being the more cost effective when the time horizon is 6.3 years or more. The time horizon of the analysis becomes a key determinant of the cost effectiveness of Grazax when used as a WHO-recommended SIT treatment.     

双方关系、关系网络、法院与政府:中国非国有企业间信任的研究

以中国四省区 2 2 0家非国有企业为例 ,本文考察了决定企业间信任程度的各种因素 ,并分析了它们影响信任程度的不同作用渠道以及相互关系 ,从而实证检验了信任形成的“双方关系论”、“关系网络论”、“法院论”和“政府论”。Tobit模型回归结果显示 ,企业面临的激烈市场竞争、企业的社会关系网络、纠纷信息的有效扩散等因素都显著提高了企业对第二大客户的信任程度 ,而可能中断的业务关系以及缺乏约束合同纠纷的有效机制起到了负面作用。以上因素对信任程度的影响随业务时间长短而异 ,而且彼此之间可能相互独立、补充、或替代。研究发现支持了“双方关系论”和“关系网络论” ,否定了“法院论”和“政府论”。政策含义强调了适度的市场竞争、利用社会关系网络、保持信息传播的通畅等措施对加强信任的重要性 ,同时也指出了司法改革应当考虑到它会影响市场竞争与信息扩散因素对信任程度的不同作用 ,因此需要寻求均衡改革方案。     

Diversity and trust: The role of shared values

Social diversity has been linked to a range of socio-economic and political outcomes, generally showing that higher diversity is associated with lower socio-economic performance. In this paper we focus on the extent to which key human values and beliefs are shared in society, which captures a dimension of diversity not previously discussed. We assess the importance of value diversity by focusing on its role in fostering generalized trust within societies. We find that value diversity, in particular with regard to political ideological values concerning income redistribution and the role of the government in influencing markets, is important for understanding the international variation in trust, with high diversity being associated with lower levels of trust. This relationship is robust to controlling for various other determinants of trust, including other dimensions of diversity, and holds at various levels of aggregation.     

The role of trust and contract in the supply of business advice

The use of legal contract and personal trust are compared inthis paper for the relationships between clients and their differentadvisers who supply business advice. Personal trust betweenclient and adviser is found to operate as an exclusive meansto manage relational exchange only for social and family relationships.Using a sample survey of small and medium sized enterprises,results demonstrate that trust and legal contract are most commonlyoverlapping categories. Comparing different types of adviser,the level of trust, extent of legal contract, service intensity,service costs and client impact and satisfaction are each foundto interact. There are major differences between suppliers,but except in the case of social and family relationships toadvisers, higher reliance on trust alone is generally associatedwith lower levels of client impact and satisfaction received.The combination of trust with contract tends to be the routewhich is most associated with higher levels of client impactand satisfaction.     

Perceived trustworthiness and inter-firm governance: empirical evidence from the UK printing industry

The paper describes six representative theoretical positionsregarding the impact of trustworthiness on the organisationof inter-firm relations. The positions are then assessed onthe basis of a survey of 184 buyer–supplier relationshipsin the UK printing industry. The widely accepted transactioncost argument for trust as a parameter reducing hierarchy isdismissed. Instead, the so-called triadic forces argument basedon Bradach, J. L. and Eccles, R. G. (1989. Price, authorityand trust: from ideal types to plural forms, Annual Review ofSociology, vol. 15, 96–118) receives the strongest support.Market, hierarchy and trust represent alternative mechanismsthat can be combined in a variety of ways. This pluralisticmodel is enriched further by the acknowledgement of variableroles for contracts and a sceptic stance regarding rationalityin practice.     

Trade,trust and the rule of law

Well-functioning institutions, both formal (i.e. rule of law) and informal (i.e. trust), facilitate economic exchange. To investigate the nature of the relationship between formal and informal institutions, we analyze bilateral trade patterns in a sample of 16 European countries between 1996–2009. Our results show that trust and rule of law are substitutes, as the positive effect of trust on trade is conditional on the quality of the rule of law. When the rule of law of the importing country increases relative to that of the exporter, the effect of trust on trade decreases. The decline in the effect of trust on trade is less for importers than for exporters, a result that can be attributed to the risk of non-payment that exporters run.     

合作创新战略联盟中企业间相互信任问题的分析

越来越多的管理者开始认识到合作创新对于企业竞争优势的重要性。在这个背景下,相互信任被认为是合作成功的关键要素。本文从企业间相互信任的前置因素和后果变量两个方面,分析了合作创新战略联盟中企业间相互信任的问题,并提出了合作创新战略联盟中企业间相互信任问题的理论模型和相关命题。     

中国金融信托业经营效率评价——基于20家信托公司2004—2008年的经验数据

本文通过将Monte-Carlo模拟理论、结构方程模型理论和三阶段DEA模型理论相结合,选取效率评估指标和环境变量指标,测算了剔除环境变量和随机误差项对经营绩效的影响后的我国20家信托公司2004—2008年经营的真实效率。结果显示:我国金融信托业的真实效率不仅主要受配置效率的影响,还受环境因素和随机误差项的影响,从而验证了环境变量和随机误差对我国金融信托公司经营的真实效率的测算结果存在较大影响的假设。     

Organisational change in new ventures in Chinese context: the open innovation

This paper uses case study method to examine the acquisition process of information and funding through the implementation of open innovation (OI) in new ventures in Chinese context. We find that in the process of accessing to the marketing or technical information through OI, the most important thing for enterprises is to establish trust and cooperation with familiar partners, and trust is derived from existing social relations. In the process of funding acquisition through OI, the most important thing for enterprises is to strike a balance between gains and losses.     

Trust and attitudes toward income inequality: Does individualism matter?

In the last decade authors have increasingly examined the role of two cultural traits – trust and individualism – on a variety of economic outcomes ranging from gendered attitudes to entrepreneurship, human capital accumulation, and economic development. While both have positive effects, recent literature suggests that the effects of trust are often conditional on other variables, and this aspect has been neglected in the literature. Indeed, a recent paper found that with respect to gendered attitudes, there are important interactions between the traits of trust and individualism. Building on this foundation we explore how views of trust and individualism interact to affect attitudes about income inequality. Our results show that while views regarding social trust generally positively affect the desire for income equality, this effect is strengthened in the presence of high individualism. Alternatively stated, distrust in highly individualistic environments leads to a greater desire for income differences (inequality). Our result highlights the important role played by market-based price and profit incentives in fostering economic activity and exchange in larger, impersonal extended orders where interpersonal trust and reputational effects are generally absent (in contrast to personal, small group exchange). Our results are robust to a variety of techniques to establish identification and account for sample selection and omitted variable bias.     

Examining world-wide purchasing power parity

We examine long-run PPP between Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the United States over the period 1930–1996 using multivariate cointegration techniques. Bilateral PPP between the four countries is examined in one system (as opposed to e.g. series of trivariate systems). In all of the statistical analysis, asymptotic tests are augmented by parametric bootstrap analogues, whereby we reduce, if not eliminate, the size distortion typically present in small-sample studies. The cointegration analysis provides support for the necessary conditions for PPP (i.e. cointegrating relations are found) but not for the sufficient conditions (i.e., the coefficients in the cointegrating relations are far from what PPP predicts). These results are at odds with results from other studies that also analyze long-horizon data sets.First version received: November 2000/Final version received: February 2003Comments by Stefan Norrbin, Lee Ohanian, Anders Vredin, seminar-participants at Sveriges Riksbank (the central bank of Sweden) and at the Econometric Society European Meeting in Santiago de Compostela are gratefully acknowledged.     

伦理型领导与员工知识共享行为

基于社会学习理论和社会交换理论,利用353份企业员工数据,深入探讨伦理型领导对员工知识共享行为的影响机理,验证了组织信任的中介作用和心理安全的调节效应。研究发现：伦理型领导对员工知识共享行为有显著正向影响;组织信任在其中起部分中介作用;心理安全强化了组织信任与知识共享行为之间的正向关系,即员工心理安全度越高,组织信任对知识共享行为的作用越强。