Trust in African Villages: Experimental Evidence from Rural Sierra Leone

This chapter studies the correlates of trust and trustworthiness for a population of African smallholder farmers. Using experimental and survey data from 1,289 subjects in 86 communities in Sierra Leone, the study finds that the number of tokens sent in a trust game is smaller than amounts typically sent in other contexts. Levels of trustworthiness, as measured by the number of tokens sent back in the trust game, are comparable. The chapter also shows that trust and trustworthiness are correlated with certain social preferences, beliefs, and village context variables. This calls into question what is exactly measured by the trust game.