Many economic studies focus on the links between the social and cultural characteristics of a country’s inhabitants (or a company’s employees) and that country’s economic or educational performance (or the company’s performance). A study recently cited on BS Initiative is that of Yann Algan, on the link between educational practices and trust (see the article « Economics and Education »).
There are several surveys that measure trust. The most renowned of these is undoubtedly the World Value Survey. This covers representative samples (i.e., taking into account geographical, social, and religious diversity) of thousands of individuals in each country, who answer the following question : « In general, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can never be too careful when dealing with others? « with the possible answers being « Most people can be trusted » or « You can never be too careful when dealing with others » (with the option of « no opinion » of course, as in all serious surveys). Based on the answers, a score is calculated for each country. The country with the highest score is thus supposed to represent « the country where people trust each other the most » and vice versa.
The top three countries in this ranking are three Scandinavian countries: Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. In 2006, France was among the « worst performers » in this category, ranking second to last among OECD countries. Some try to find explanations for this particular result in the characteristics of French society and its institutions (see our article « Education and Economy »), while others cite cultural traits as the main explanation (pronounced individualism, historical traits, etc.). It should be noted that for Yann Algan and other researchers, trust in a society is one of the key determinants of its economic growth.
Julien P.
NB: It should be noted that this type of survey is subject to the usual biases of international statistical surveys: regional score diversity (Paris vs. the provinces in France, for example) is eliminated in favor of a national score, and, of course, psychological biases in the responses provided influence the score (perception of the meaning of the word « trust, » for example, which differs from country to country). Similarly, the dichotomy of responses is a drawback of this survey. The European Social Survey is a complementary survey that uses a wider range of responses (from 1 to 10).
