Testing the trust game with undergraduates: an experiment with wealth heterogeneity

Abstract

Trust, reciprocity and a fair distribution of resources are cruzial in the sustainability of any economic system. As a matter of fact, those are values that should be promoted among the new generations, especially among university students enrolled in degrees that are related to economics. Under this context, we are interested in enhancing criticism and active reflection among undergraduates with respect to social values. With such a goal in mind, we designed a two step classroom task that includes playing the Trust Game (TG) in the first place and, second, a discussion activity. This paper is an extension of Caballer-Tarazona et al. (2016) with a novelty: A new treatment is introduced in which subjects have information about the cumulated wealth of their partners. As a complement of the educational purpose of the task, data collected during the experiment has been used to test three hypotheses on trust and reciprocity among students. Two main results emerge:First, information has no effect on trust and reciprocity decisions. And second, in median a gender effect in such decisions is found.