Pierluigi Conzo - Duke University
Blessed are the first: The long-term effect of birth order on trust
Date: 03/01/2018 (Thu)
Time: 3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: Seminar will be held on-site: Gross Hall 270
Organizer: Laura Satterfield
Meeting Schedule: (Not currently open for scheduling. Please contact the seminar organizer listed above.)
All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.
3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)
Additional Comments: ABSTRACT: The renewed interest by the economic literature in the effect of birth order on children’s outcomes has neglected trust as a long-term output of familial environment. Acknowledging childhood as a crucial stage of life for the formation of long-term social preferences, we go deeper into the early-life determinants of trust, a widely recognized driver of socio-economic success. We analyse if and how differences in the order of birth predict heterogeneous self-reported trust levels in Britain. We draw hypotheses from psychology, economics and sociology, and empirically test alternative explanations to the association between birth order and trust. Relying on an index measuring birth order independently from sibship size, we find a negative and a highly robust effect of birth order, with laterborns trusting less than their older siblings. This effect is not accounted for by personality traits, strength of family ties, risk aversion and parental inputs. The birth-order effect is only partially explained by complementary human-capital outcomes, and is robust when we use alternative dependent variables and control for endogenous fertility. In addition, multilevel estimates show that most of the trust variability is driven by within- rather than between-family characteristics. Our results are mainly driven by male respondents and moderated by their mother’s education, thereby leading to relevant policy implications.