The Role Of Trust In Access To Bank Loans: Results From Field Experiments In The Ecuadorian Amazon

In this paper, we distinguish between horizontal and vertical trust. We investigate how these measures of trust, as well as measures of trustworthiness and risk aversion are related to the probability of rural farmers of having had a loan from a bank. Using experimental and survey data from 191 farmers of the Amazon region of Ecuador, we find that: (1) controlling for risk aversion, women do not trust differently than men in each trust game, however, women compared to men do trust outside professionals more than community members, and (2) isolated rural farmers with stronger preferences for trusting outside professionals experience higher levels of bank loan uptake.