Trust and kinship: experimental evidence from rural India

The evidence on the welfare effects of kinship is mixed, suggesting both positive and adverse effects of kinship. This study looks into the differential effects of kinship on trusting and trustworthy behaviour by investigating the subjects’ motives and drivers of differential behaviour towards kin and non-kin. We conducted an economic experiment with households of rural India. We found that kin are trusted more than non-kin and that differential trust towards kin and non-kin is mainly driven by higher other-regarding preferences towards kin rather than being due to differences in expected reciprocity between kin and non-kin. We observed a heterogeneous effect of kin on trustworthy behaviour: kin exhibit low trustworthiness when they are not close to other kin, while they exhibit higher trustworthiness when they have close kin in the network.