“A central problem in economics, psychology, and sociology is the problem of trust. Trust is also the central problem of e-commerce. eTrust brings together social psychologists and communications scholars to capitalize on this insight and address the problem of trust in online settings with a combination of experimental methods and analyses of data from actual online systems (in some cases combining the two in innovative ways). The results illuminate our understanding of trust as a general phenomenon at the same time they cast new light upon e-commerce and bring valuable theoretical tools to students of the Internet.”
—PAUL DIMAGGIO, professor of sociology, Princeton University 

“Karen Cook and her coeditors have brought together a distinguished, international group of scholars to address a crucial issue of contemporary times: how do individuals form trusting relationships when using the Internet? This is an important and readable set of studies that build and extend prior work on trust based on face-to-face relationships.”
—ELINOR OSTROM, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Indiana University

There is one thing that moves online consumers to click “add to cart,” that allows sellers to accept certain forms of online payment, and that makes online product reviews meaningful: trust. Without trust, online interactions can’t advance. But how is trust among strangers established on the Internet? What role does reputation play in the formation of online trust? In eTrust, editors Karen Cook, Chris Snijders, Vincent Buskens, and Coye Cheshire explore the unmapped territory where trust, reputation, and online relationships intersect, with major implications for online commerce and social networking.

eTrust uses experimental studies and field research to examine how trust in anonymous online exchanges can create or diminish cooperation between people. The first part of the volume looks at how feedback affects online auctions using trust experiments. Gary Bolton and Axel Ockenfels find that the availability of feedback leads to more trust among one-time buyers, while Davide Barrera and Vincent Buskens demonstrate that, in investment transactions, the buyer’s own experience guides decision making about future transactions with sellers. The field studies in Part II of the book examine the degree to which reputation facilitates trust in online exchanges. Andreas Diekmann, Ben Jann, and David Wyder identify a “reputation premium” in mobile phone auctions, which not only drives future transactions between buyers and sellers but also payment modes and starting bids. Chris Snijders and Jeroen Weesie shift focus to the market for online programmers, where tough competition among programmers allows buyers to shop around. The book’s third section reveals how the quality and quantity of available information influences actual marketplace participants. Sonja Utz finds that even when unforeseen accidents hinder transactions—lost packages, computer crashes—the seller is still less likely to overcome repercussions from the negative feedback of dissatisfied buyers.

So much of our lives are becoming enmeshed with the Internet, where ordinary social cues and reputational networks that support trust in the real world simply don’t apply. eTrust breaks new ground by articulating the conditions under which trust can evolve and grow online, providing both theoretical and practical insights for anyone interested in how online relationships influence our decisions.

KAREN S. COOK is Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology and the current chair of the sociology department at Stanford University.

CHRIS SNIJDERS is professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

VINCENT BUSKENS is associate professor in the Department of Sociology/ICS at Utrecht University.

COYE CHESHIRE is assistant professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

CONTRIBUTORS: Vincent Buskens, Coye Cheshire, Karen S. Cook, Chris Snijders, Judd Antin, Brandy Aven, Davide Barrera, Gary E. Bolton, Andreas Diekmann, Alexandra Gerbasi, Ben Jann, Tapan Khopkar, Azi Lev-On, Masafumi Matsuda, Uwe Matzat, Axel Ockenfels, Paul Resnick, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Yukihiro Usui, Sonja Utz, Jeroen Weesie, David Wyder, Toshio Yamagishi, and Noriaki Yoshikai.


A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

“This collection of essays from diverse scholars will become a standard reference book for those interested in the conditions generating trust and the effects of trust in interpersonal relations, groups, networks, organizations, and institutional systems. Taken together, the essays provide new explanatory insights on the properties and dynamics of trust at the micro, meso, and macro levels of social reality. Theoretical insights are illustrated with data collected by a range of methodologies and in a wide range of settings. Whom Can We Trust? is a book that will appeal to researchers and theorists within academia, but equally significant, it is a book that will prove useful to policy makers and applied social scientists dealing with real-world problems. Thus, for anyone interested in the mechanisms underpinning social relations and patterns of social organization, this book is a ‘must-read.’”
—Jonathan H. Turner, University of California, Riverside

“Whom Can We Trust? continues the highly successful Russell Sage Foundation series of volumes on trust. The central contribution of this volume is an examination of the factors facilitating trust-based cooperation. The chapters draw upon both laboratory and field research findings to provide a rich set of insights into the variety of social and institutional frameworks through which groups, organizations, and societies enable people to act based upon trust in others. This volume is relevant to everyone interested in the concept of trust but will be especially valuable to those whose focus is upon how to encourage cooperation in social settings.”
—Tom R. Tyler, New York University

Conventional wisdom holds that trust is essential for cooperation between individuals and institutions—such as community organizations, banks, and local governments. Not necessarily so, according to editors Karen Cook, Margaret Levi, and Russell Hardin. Cooperation thrives under a variety of circum-stances. Whom Can We Trust? examines the conditions that promote or constrain trust and advances our understanding of how cooperation really works.

From interpersonal and intergroup relations to large-scale organizations, Whom Can We Trust? uses empirical research to show that the need for trust and trustworthiness as prerequisites to cooperation varies widely. Part I addresses the sources of group-based trust. One chapter focuses on the assumption—versus the reality—of trust among coethnics in Uganda. Another examines the effects of social-network position on trust and trustworthiness in urban Ghana and rural Kenya. And a third demonstrates how cooperation evolves in groups where reciprocity is the social norm. Part II asks whether there is a causal relationship between institutions and feelings of trust in individuals. What does—and doesn’t—promote trust between doctors and patients in a managed-care setting? How do poverty and mistrust figure into the relations between inner city residents and their local leaders? Part III reveals how institutions and networks create environments for trust and cooperation. Chapters in this section look at trust as credit-worthiness and the history of borrowing and lending in the Anglo-American commercial world; the influence of the perceived legitimacy of local courts in the Philippines on the trust relations between citizens and the government; and the key role of skepticism, not necessarily trust, in a well-developed democratic society.

Whom Can We Trust? unravels the intertwined functions of trust and cooperation in diverse cultural, economic, and social settings. The book provides a bold new way of thinking about how trust develops, the real limitations of trust, and when trust may not even be necessary for forging cooperation.

KAREN S. COOK is Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology and the current chair of the sociology department at Stanford University.

MARGARET LEVI is Jere L. Bacharach Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington, Seattle.

RUSSELL HARDIN is professor of politics at New York University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Abigail Barr, Bruce G. Carruthers,  Matthew R. Cleary,  Jean Enminger,  Henry Farrell,  Margaret Foddy,  Corina Graif,  James Habyarimana,  Philip T. Hoffman, Macartan Humphreys, Jeffrey C. Johnson,  Roderick Kramer,  Stefanie Mullborn,  Gabriella R. Montinola,  Elinor Ostrom,  Daniel N. Posner,  Gilles Postel-Vinay,  Jean-Laureant Rosenthal,  Robert J. Sampson,  Irena Stepanikova,  Susan C. Stokes,  David Thom,  James Walker,  Jeremy M. Weinstein,  Toshio Yamagishi.

A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

"This is an important and timely volume. Robert Cherry and William M. Rodgers III assembled an outstanding group of social scientist to examine the impact of the economic boom on African Americans. The careful and detailed analyses of the employment and earnings of African Americans in a tight labor market will be widely cited and discussed. Indeed, Prosperity for All? will undoubtedly become a standard reference for those who seek authoritative works on the economic prospects of black Americans."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Harvard University

"To what extent do the tight labor markets of the late 1990s improve the employment and earnings of African Americans and other disadvantaged groups? How much of the deterioration in their employment prospects that occurred during the previous two decades is being reversed, and will these gains persist over time? Do discriminatory attitudes and behaviors among employers also persist, and to what extent do they diminish in tight markets? These are among the questions addressed in the set of papers edited by Robert Cherry and William M. Rodgers III. The editors should be commended for bringing together a distinguished group of researchers, and for generating a volume that addresses such important and timely questions in a convincing fashion."
-HARRY J. HOLZER, Michigan State University

"As Prosperity For All? goes to press, the rules of the new economy are being rewritten. This book offers powerful new evidence that at least one important rule from the old economy still applies: Sustained economic growth conveys substantial benefits for society's most vulnerable workers."
-ALAN KRUEGER, Princeton University

With the nation enjoying a remarkable long and robust economic expansion, AfricanAmerican employment has risen to an all-time high. Does this good news refute the notion of a permanently disadvantaged black underclass, or has one type of disadvantage been replaced by another? Some economists fear that many newly employed minority workers will remain stuck in low-wage jobs, barred from better-paying, high skill jobs by their lack of educational opportunities and entrenched racial discrimination. Prosperity for All? draws upon the research and insights of respected economists to address these important issues.

Prosperity for All? reveals that while African Americans benefit in many ways from a strong job market, serious problems remain. Research presented in this book shows that the ratio of black to white unemployment has actually increased over recent expansions. Even though African American men are currently less likely to leave the workforce, the number of those who do not find work at all has grown substantially, indicating that joblessness is now concentrated among the most alienated members of the population. Other chapters offer striking evidence that racial inequality is still pervasive. Among men, black high school dropouts have more difficulty finding work than their Latino or white counterparts. Likewise, the glass ceiling that limits minority access to higher paying promotions persists even in a strong economy. Prosperity for All? ascribes black disadvantage in the labor force to employer discrimination, particularly when there is strong competition for jobs. As one study illustrates, economic upswings do not appear to change racial preferences among employers, who remain less willing to hire African Americans for more skilled low-wage jobs.

Prosperity for All? offers a timely investigation into the impact of strong labor markets on low-skill African-American workers, with important insights into the issues engendered by the weakening of federal assistance, job training, and affirmative action programs.

ROBERT CHERRY is professor of economics at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

WILLIAM M. RODGERS III is chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor. He is on leave from the College of William and Mary where he is the Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Associate Professor of Economics.

CONTRIBUTORS: Heather Boushey, Cecilia Conrad, Mary Corcoran, Sandra Danziger, Sheldon Danziger, William Darity Jr., Gregory E. DeFreitas,  Richard B. Freeman,  Colleen Heflin,  Joyce P. Jacobsen,  Chinhui Juhn,  Ariel Kalil,  Sanders Korenman, Laurence M. Levin,  Judith Levine, Philip Moss, Samuell L. Meyers Jr., Cordelia W. Reimers,  Daniel Rosen,  Kristin Seefeldt,  Kristine Siefert,  William E. Spriggs,  Chris Tilly,  Richard Tolman,  Rhonda M. Williams.  

"For those who think that low-wage workers are just 'unskilled' workers who somehow deserve their fates, Low-Wage Work in France is a must read, in that it shows how their fates vary across sectors within a given country (France) and across countries, within Europe or across the Atlantic."
-DANIEL COHEN, professor, École Normale Supérieure and Paris School of Economics, and director, CEPREMAP

"France has replaced Sweden as the quintessential example of the over-regulated, bloated welfare state that strangles the market economy, producing inefficient workplaces, and undermines incentives to work. As in the case of Sweden, the reality is much more complicated. With a comprehensive overview chapter and five case studies of narrowly framed jobs in different sectors, Eve Caroli and the contributors to this volume show that a high minimum wage has successfully limited the incidence of low wages, but that there has been a growing intensification of work, a development that challenges this orthodox view. Anyone who cares about understanding the real nature of low wage work in France must read this excellent book."
-DAVID R. HOWELL, professor of economics, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy

"Low-Wage Work in France will surely take its place among the Russell Sage Foundation's landmark studies of low paid work in the United States and Europe. A team of distinguished labor economists and sociologists highlights the harsh nature of low-wage work in France, the intensity of its work rhythms and its insecurity. The causes, they argue, often lie in a mix of intense competition in the product markets of these sectors, combined with monopsony power in their labor markets. The institutional structure of French labor markets in conjunction with the employment systems operated by private and public sector organizations shape the incidence of low-wage work, and help explain the specificity of the French case compared with other countries. This work will prove invaluable to all who wish to understand the causes of low-wage employment, and to develop policies to alleviate its consequences for the workers concerned."
-DAVID MARSDEN, professor of industrial relations, London School of Economics

In France, low wages have historically inspired tremendous political controversy. The social and political issues at stake center on integrating the working class into society and maintaining the stability of the republican regime. A variety of federal policies—including high minimum wages and strong employee protection—serve to ensure that the low-wage workforce stays relatively small. Low-Wage Work in France examines both the benefits and drawbacks of this politically inspired system of worker protection. France’s high minimum wage, which is indexed not only to inflation but also to the average increase in employee wages, plays a critical role in limiting the development of low-paid work. Social welfare benefits and a mandatory thirty-five hour work week also make life easier for low-wage workers. Strong employee protection is a central characteristic of the French model, but high levels of protection for employees may also be one of the causes of France’s chronically high rate of unemployment. The threat of long-term unemployment may, in turn, contribute to a persistent sense of insecurity among French workers. Low-Wage Work in France provides a lucid analysis of how a highly regulated labor market shapes the experiences of workers—for better and for worse.

ÈVE CAROLI is professor of economics at University Paris X.

JÉRÔME GAUTIÉ is professor of economics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

CONTRIBUTORS: Anne Marie Arborio, Philippe Askenazy, Mathieu Beraud, Jean-Baptiste Berry, Jacques Bouteiller, Lise Causse, Thierry Colin, Emilie Feriel, Benoit Grasser, Christine Guegnard, Annie Lamenthe, Philippe Mehaut, Sylvie-Anne Meriot, Philippe Mosse, Sophie Prunier-Poulmaire, Robert Solow.

A Volume in the RSF Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies

"It's a sad thing that the United States still leads the rich world in poverty. But it's a very good thing that we have the kind of high quality research represented by this sterling volume. To learn the latest about the changing nature of poverty in America, and of the policy responses to it, this is the place to look."
-ALAN S. BLINDER, Princeton University

"High rates of poverty were the shame of American capitalism even before the great recession of the late 2000s. The recession will raise poverty to levels not seen since the early 1960s. What can we do? Changing Poverty, Changing Policies documents the factors and decisions that have kept poverty rates high even in good times and then considers evidence-based policies that could help turn the tide in the war on poverty-at least when the recovery comes. Whether you regard the policies as too modest or too far-reaching, the book is invaluable to understanding past failures to reduce poverty and in devising ways to improve on our abysmal record."
-RICHARD B. FREEMAN, Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research

"This timely book refocuses our attention on measures to 'make work pay' as a way to reduce poverty. It provides a comprehensive analysis of policies to reduce poverty by supporting income and employment over the last thirty years. The editors bravely highlight their favorite policies. Some of these, like fighting discrimination, expanding the EITC, investing in early childhood education, and implementing health insurance reform are relatively uncontroversial. Others, like increasing minimum wages, expanding 'jobs of last resort programs,' putting more money into state child care systems (which are not always of the highest quality), and expanding paid parental leave through the social insurance system are more hotly debated. But whether you agree or disagree, the analysis presented here by some of the country's leading anti-poverty experts will make you think."
-JANET CURRIE, Columbia University

Poverty declined significantly in the decade after Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 declaration of “War on Poverty.” Dramatically increased federal funding for education and training programs, social security benefits, other income support programs, and a growing economy reduced poverty and raised expectations that income poverty could be eliminated within a generation. Yet the official poverty rate has never fallen below its 1973 level and remains higher than the rates in many other advanced economies. In this book, editors Maria Cancian and Sheldon Danziger and leading poverty researchers assess why the War on Poverty was not won and analyze the most promising strategies to reduce poverty in the twenty-first century economy.

Changing Poverty, Changing Policies documents how economic, social, demographic, and public policy changes since the early 1970s have altered who is poor and where antipoverty initiatives have kept pace or fallen behind. Part I shows that little progress has been made in reducing poverty, except among the elderly, in the last three decades. The chapters examine how changing labor market opportunities for less-educated workers have increased their risk of poverty (Rebecca Blank), and how family structure changes (Maria Cancian and Deborah Reed) and immigration have affected poverty (Steven Raphael and Eugene Smolensky). Part II assesses the ways childhood poverty influences adult outcomes. Markus Jäntti finds that poor American children are more likely to be poor adults than are children in many other industrialized countries. Part III focuses on current antipoverty policies and possible alternatives. Jane Waldfogel demonstrates that policies in other countries—such as sick leave, subsidized child care, and schedule flexibility—help low-wage parents better balance work and family responsibilities. Part IV considers how rethinking and redefining poverty might take antipoverty policies in new directions. Mary Jo Bane assesses the politics of poverty since the 1996 welfare reform act. Robert Haveman argues that income-based poverty measures should be expanded, as they have been in Europe, to include social exclusion and multiple dimensions of material hardships.

Changing Poverty, Changing Policies shows that thoughtful policy reforms can reduce poverty and promote opportunities for poor workers and their families. The authors’ focus on pragmatic measures that have real possibilities of being implemented in the United States not only provides vital knowledge about what works but real hope for change.

Listen to Maria Cancian speak about marriage on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.

MARIA CANCIAN is professor of public affairs and social work and research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

SHELDON DANZIGER is Henry J. Meyer Distinguished University Professor of Public Policy and director of the National Poverty Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

CONTRIBUTORS: Mary Jo Bane, Rebecca M. Blank, Maria Cancian, Benjamin Cowan, Sheldon Danziger, Robert Haveman, Harry J. Holzer, Brian A. Jacob, Markus Jäntti, Jens Ludwig, Katherine Magnuson, Daniel R. Meyer, Robert Moffitt, Deborah Reed, Steven Raphael, John Karl Scholz, Eugene Smolensky, Katherine Swartz, Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, Jane Waldfogel, Geoffrey L. Wallace

An Institute for Research on Poverty Affiliated Book on Poverty and Public Policy

Considers how Americans define the quality of their life experiences, as expressed in their perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. Based on research conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the book uses data which are representative of the national population eighteen years of age and older, and employs the major social characteristics of class, age, education, and income. The authors cover such topics as the residential environment, the experience of work, marriage, and family life, and personal resources and competence. They also report on the situation of women and the quality of the life experience of black people.

ANGUS CAMPBELL is professor of psychology and sociology and director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

PHILIP E. CONVERSE is Robert C. Angell Professor of Political Science and Sociology and program director of the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

WILLARD L. RODGERS is senior study director of the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, at the University of Michigan.