Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
武装冲突暴露与信任：来自自然实验的证据
Armed conflict exposure and trust: evidence from a natural experiment*
摘要
This study examines how exposure to armed conflict affects group-specific trust, focusing on individuals exposed during military service. Our identification strategy exploits a population-level natural experiment generated by Turkey’s strict military conscription system and its long-running civil conflict. We combine this setting with an original field survey to identify causal effects and examine individual-level mechanisms while minimizing contextual confounding. We find that men exposed to the armed conflict during their conscription service exhibit elevated ingroup trust, with no corresponding increase in trust toward outgroups or in generalized trust. In contrast, those with battlefield traumas display lower trust overall. Exposed veterans also display stronger ingroup-biased attitudes like nationalism, intolerance, religiosity, and adherence to social norms. These results suggest that conflict exposure shifts social preferences toward ingroup favouritism without strengthening broader forms of trust, a pattern that is likely to hinder the accumulation of social capital and, in turn, adversely affect long-run economic development and institutional quality. Similar content being viewed by others
中文摘要
本研究探讨武装冲突经历如何影响群体特定信任，重点关注服役期间暴露于冲突的个体。我们的识别策略利用土耳其严格兵役制度及其长期内战冲突所产生的人口层面自然实验。通过结合这一情境与原创实地调查，我们在最小化情境混杂因素的同时识别因果效应并考察个体层面机制。研究发现，在服役期间暴露于武装冲突的男性表现出更强的内群体信任，但对外群体信任或普遍信任并未相应提升。相反，经历战场创伤的个体整体信任水平较低。暴露于冲突的退伍军人还表现出更强的内群体偏好倾向，如民族主义、不宽容、宗教虔诚及对社会规范的遵从。这些结果表明，冲突经历将社会偏好转向内群体偏袒，却未能强化更广泛的信任形式，这种模式可能阻碍社会资本积累，进而对长期经济发展和制度质量产生不利影响。