In this book, I make use of an idea from economics to suggest how noble human tendencies might not only have survived the ruthless pressures of the material world, but actually have been nurtured by them.

The issue of trust has recently attracted growing attention in research on work relations, capital – owner relations, cultural influences on the economic structures of different countries, and other topics. This paper analyzes a simple experiment on trust and the reward of trust. Mr A is endowed with DM 80. He decides to trust Ms B (and give her his money) or not. Ms B is able to double the sum of money (if she gets it) and can then decide (...) to give back as much as she likes. In an experiment, 76% of subjects A decided to trust. The average reward they received was DM 79.2 which is not significantly different from DM 80, the value of mistrust; nor was the average reward different from the average expectations of subjects A, i.e. a weak variant of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis is supported. In the paper we also look for differences between trusting and mistrusting A-subjects, for behavioral norms, and other determinants of rewards. (shrink)