Vertrauen: Substitut oder Komplement zu formellen Institutionen?

In this paper, we take trust as a specific, cooperative investment. The trustor is mainly interested in the possibility to rely on the trustee (“reliance”), while the trustee’s object is to receive a trustworthy sig-nal (“trust responsiveness”). The value of a trust relationship amounts and equals to not less than the social surplus which it can generate. On the one hand, a social optimal solution is feasible in the case where both parties agree on “liquidated damages” (perfect jurisdiction). Yet, it is also possible, on the other hand, to achieve a second best solution in a non-perfect jurisdiction world when “trust respon-siveness” comes into play.