Experimental Evidence on Social Trust and Individual Attitudes Towards Trade Liberalisation in Vietnam

In previous research on social trust, aggregate measures of trust have been found to be positively associated with important indicators of economic growth, including high levels of cross-border trade. By investigating this apparent relation within the framework of public opinion research, this study seeks to better understand the relationship between social trust and economic attitudes at the micro level of the individual. In particular, this study aims to test how differences in individuals’ level of support for trade liberalization can be related to individual levels of social trust. As trade liberalization processes set in, economic exchanges increasingly take place between strangers. Inevitably, the issue of trust or lack thereof gains great significance in such settings. Drawing on evidence generated by earlier work, it is argued that social trust diminishes uncertainty and risk perceptions often associated with exposure to economic globalisation, thus allowing individuals to feel more at ease with engaging in economic transactions with entities from foreign countries. Accordingly, the micro implication of the relation between social trust and trade openness is that the less trusting individuals are, the less likely they are to support further economic openness. Remarkably, the empirical testing of this relationship has thus far been limited to the exploration of correlational associations between some self-reported attitudes of trust or past trusting behaviour and respondents’ stated trade preferences. Through a trust game, this study seeks to provide a more direct assessment of how an individual’s trusting behaviour relates to her level of support for trade liberalization. To this end, we conduct a field survey experiment in Vietnam – a country in the midst of opening up its economy – with convenience samples among students and the wider Vietnamese public.