TY - JOUR

T1 - Diversity and trust

T2 - The role of shared values

AU - Beugelsdijk, Sjoerd

AU - Klasing, Mariko J.

PY - 2016/8

Y1 - 2016/8

N2 - 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. (C) 2015 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

AB - 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. (C) 2015 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

KW - Diversity

KW - Values

KW - Polarization

KW - Political ideology

KW - Trust

KW - ECONOMIC-GROWTH

KW - SOCIAL TRUST

KW - ETHNIC DIVISIONS

KW - CROSS-SECTION

KW - POLARIZATION

KW - INSTITUTIONS

KW - GOVERNMENT

KW - DIMENSIONS

KW - COUNTRIES

KW - CONFLICT

U2 - 10.1016/j.jce.2015.10.014

DO - 10.1016/j.jce.2015.10.014

M3 - Article

VL - 44

SP - 522

EP - 540

JO - Journal of Comparative Economics

JF - Journal of Comparative Economics

SN - 0147-5967

IS - 3

ER -