Trust, Religion, and Exchange

Countries with a long history of wars tend to trust each other less. France and England, for example, that have a record of 198 years of war (more than ten times the average of 19) should exhibit a bilateral trust that is 0.7 of a standard deviation lower than average, which accounts for the lower bilateral trust we observe between them. Religious similarity has a positive impact on trust, compared to a case where no common religion is shared, a match where 90% of the citizens share the same religion (e.g., Italy and Spain) raises trust by 15 percentage points (corresponding to 40% of its standard deviation).

That is from the article “Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?” (QJE 2009) by Zingales, Guiso and Sapienza.