Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/51487
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 668
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department, Washington, DC
Abstract: 
This paper argues that welfare programs are linked with the destruction of social capital, as measured by interpersonal trust in laboratory games. The paper employs experimental data for representative samples of individuals in four Latin American capital cities (Bogota, Lima, Montevideo, and San Jose), finding that participation in welfare programs damage trust. This result is robust to the inclusion of individual risk measures and a broad array of controls. The findings also support the notion that low take-up rates may be due to stigma linked with trust and social capital, rather than transaction costs.
Subjects: 
Experiments
Surveys
Social Programs
Trust
Stigma
Latin America
JEL: 
D01
O12
O10
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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