收入不平等情境下人际信任水平的行为与实验经济学研究

Trust is a significant factor to influence economic growth. Since the Reform and Opening of China, the growing gap between the rich and poor lowers interpersonal trust, bringing serious “Trust Crisis”. Although massive observations in macroeconomics have revealed the relationship between income inequality and interpersonal trust, raising three mechanism hypotheses including “Social Fractionalization mechanism”, “Social Conflict mechanism” and “Status Anxiety mechanism”, the micro-mechanism of these hypotheses remains rarely studied. The current program on micro-mechanism of income inequality affecting interpersonal trust has a great significance in solving “Crisis of Trust” through narrowing the gap between the rich and poor in China. The current program will reveal the micro-mechanism of income inequality affecting interpersonal trust through testing the three hypotheses by laboratory experiments. The current program will also test the robustness and validity of the micro-mechanism of income inequality affecting Chinese “Diversity-orderly” trust in Chinese “inverted T” income structure through field experiments by controlling other relevant factors. The current program revealing the micro-mechanism of income inequality affecting interpersonal trust has both theoretical and practical significance in bringing innovation in relevant field and in solving social problems such as “Crisis of Trust” caused by the growing income gap.

信任是影响国家经济增长的重要因素。改革开放以来我国贫富差距的增大降低了人际信任水平，带来日益严重的“信任危机”。宏观层面的实证研究揭示了收入不平等与信任之间的相关关系，提出了“社会阶层分化机制”、“社会阶层冲突机制”和“社会地位焦虑机制”三种作用机制假设，但是这三种假设的微观基础却仍鲜有研究涉及，因此有着很大的探索空间。收入不平等情境下人际信任行为与实验研究对解决“信任危机”，缩小收入差距，增进人际互信有着十分迫切的现实意义。本项目将通过设计经济学实验室实验，从收入不平等影响信任的三种机制假设出发，在微观层面验证这三种机制的有效性。本项目还拟通过田野实验控制其他相关社会因素，检验在中国收入“倒丁字”结构和信任“差序格局”中，收入不平等影响信任微观机制的稳健性和有效性。本项目研究对于国内外相关研究领域有理论上的创新性，在如何解决贫富差距带来的“信任危机”等社会问题上有着重要的现实意义。

信任是影响国家经济增长的重要因素。改革开放以来我国贫富差距的增大降低了人际信任水平，带来日益严重的“信任危机”。宏观层面的实证研究揭示了收入不平等与信任之间的相关关系，提出了“社会阶层分化机制”、“社会阶层冲突机制”和“社会地位焦虑机制”三种作用机制假设，但是这三种假设的微观基础却仍鲜有研究涉及，因此有着很大的探索空间。收入不平等情境下人际信任行为与实验研究对解决“信任危机”，缩小收入差距，增进人际互信有着十分迫切的现实意义。本项目通过设计经济学实验室实验，从收入不平等影响信任的三种机制假设出发，在微观层面验证了这三种机制的有效性。本项目还通过田野实验控制其他相关社会因素，检验了在中国收入“倒丁字”结构和信任“差序格局”中，收入不平等影响信任微观机制的稳健性和有效性。本项目研究对于国内外相关研究领域有理论上的创新性，在如何解决贫富差距带来的“信任危机”等社会问题上有着重要的现实意义。