When the rich do (not) trust the (newly) rich: experimental evidence on the effects of positive random shocks in the trust game

We study behavior in a trust game where first-movers initially have a higher endowment than second-movers but the occurrence of a positive random shock can eliminate this inequality by increasing the endowment of the second-mover before the decision of the first-mover. We find that second-movers return less (i.e., they are less trustworthy) when they have a lower endowment than first-movers, compared with the case in which first and second-movers have the same endowment. In addition, second-movers who experience the positive shock return more than second-movers who have the same endowment as the first-mover from the outset. First-movers do not seem to anticipate this behavior from second-movers. They send less to second-movers who benefited from a shock. Our findings suggest that in addition to the distribution of the endowments the source of this distribution plays an important role in determining the levels of trust and trustworthiness.

© 2025 The Author(s). Southern Economic Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Southern Economic Association.
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