The Political Economy of Trust
通过经济学与社会学的对话，分析经济活动中的信任，区分信任类型，探讨信任与权力、市场的关系，并识别高信任与低信任经济体的关键因素，对公共政策有重要启示。
There has been a considerable rise in discourses concerning trust from a range of academic disciplines and perspectives. Unfortunately, many of these literatures have talked past, rather than to, each other. This paper develops an analysis of trust in economic activity through a dialogue between the disciplines of economics and sociology. It outlines the relationship of trust to economic co–operation and identifies a number of types of trust. The potential benefits of these different types of trust to advanced capitalist economies are identified. Consideration is given to the processes of trust creation and destruction in market economies. Particular emphasis here is on how far trust can be symbiotic with, or contradictory to, power and the market. With an analysis of the key properties of individual agents which make them more or less prone to trusting behaviour, the paper is then able to identify the critical factors likely to underlie high–trust and low–trust economies. This has important public policy implications given the potential benefits which trust can have for advanced economies.