| Summary/Abstract |
This paper examines many instances of the same investment game to explore the questions of how violence affects trusting and trustworthy behaviors and how those behaviors affect a country’s level of violence or peacefulness. Average responses of players in the investment game are compared across countries experiencing varying degrees of peacefulness or conflict. The primary finding is that a macroeconomic peace index can predict trusting behavior but has no effect on trustworthy behavior. Trustworthiness, on the other hand, affects peacefulness. It is necessary, then for policymakers to foster trust and trustworthiness among individuals in order to maintain peace, and they must work to rebuild macroeconomic institutions to restore trust, to repair communities, and to revitalize economies after conflict.
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