Tracing wealth, cooperation and trust: A comparison of two great plains communities

This research examines the relationships between wealth, cooperation, and trust. Utilizing implications from the social capital literature and democratic theory, we found that trust directly affects patterns of socio-economic interactions, especially shopping. We also found that commuting was widespread and it created a rural sprawl deficit that affected trust. Specifically, the results indicated that trust of others in the community (generalized to a certain degree) tended to encourage people to shop more in town, thus contributing to the development of the community, even when controlling for commuting. Findings from this study suggest that further community level research will yield more specifics about how trust (and social capital) works to increase wealth in a community.