城市经济规模对社会信任的影响——基于地图APP数据的实证分析

The Impact of Cities'Economic Scale on Social Trust:Empirical Analysis based on Map App Data

相关研究认为,地区内部居民的平均信任水平与地区的经济结构特征密切相关。来自《中国综合社会调查》的个体数据显示,城市间居民的平均社会信任度存在明显差异。OLS回归发现,城市的经济规模与居民平均信任度间存在显著的负相关关系。为了克服OLS模型的内生性,使用各城市与省会、北京及上海间公路的通行距离作为城市经济规模的工具变量进一步分析,结果显示负相关关系仍然存在。产生相关性的经济机制在于经济规模较大的城市中通常聚集了具有不同历史或文化背景的群体,而不完全信息下的动态信任博弈会增加群体间产生误解的概率,并进而降低了相互间的信任程度。为提高社会信任水平,政策制定者应以降低群体间发生误解的概率为主要政策目标。

Based on previous research,social trust of residents and the features of economic characters are highly correlated in a region.Using the individual level data from CGSS,it is found that the gaps of social trust among cities are obvious.By OLS regression,the economic scale and residents'average social trust are negatively correlated.To overcome the endogenous problem in negative regressions,the authors use the distance from city to Beijing,and to Shanghai,as the instrument variable of economic scale.Results from 2SLS show that prior negative correlation still exists.The mechanism is that people in regions with larger scale of economic activities are usually made up of groups with different historical or cultural backgrounds.The dynamic game with incomplete information will lead to misperception among groups,and thus will reduce the mutual trust level.To increase the level of social trust in cities,policy makers should reduce the probability of misunderstanding among groups.