Trust Signaling

Author entered 'Experimental Examination of Behavior in a Sequential versus Simultaneous Trust Game' Changed to 'Trust Signaling', as given on paper online.We examine whether or not there exists a phenomenon of trust signaling. First, we want to learn whether it is worthwhile for an agent to take a potentially costly action in order to signalthe trust in another agent; and second, whether such signal of trust is then rewarded by a trust premium. In the experiment the subjects play a modified investment game: There are two players A and B. Player A chooses amount t from the interval between 0 and 10 to be sent to player B. The invested amount is tripled by the experimenter. Player B then decides whether to return a fair split, 3/2t, or a sel sh split, 0, back to the player A. Half of participants play the game sequentially, which allows trust signaling and the other half simultaneously. In the latter case there is no scope for B conditioning his decision on A s invested amount t