Social Networks And Trust: Not The Experimental Evidence You May Expect

The authors run a laboratory experiment were 'Friendship' networks are generated endogenously within an anonymous group. Their experiment builds on two phases in sequence: a network formation game and a trust game. They find that in those sessions where the trust game is played before the network formation game, the overall level of trust is not significantly different from the one observed in a simple trust game; in those sessions where the trust game is played after the network formation game they find that the overall level of trust is significantly lower than in the simple trust game.