Why Trust Matters

About this episode

Severin de Wit interviews Economist Benjamin Ho about the significance of trust in human interactions and its implications in various contexts.

In this replay of a 2023 interview, Severin de Wit speaks with Economist Benjamin Ho - Professor of Economics at Vassar College and author of Why Trust Matters: An Economist's Guide to the Ties That Bind Us. What if trust isn't just a feeling, but something humans have been calculating for thousands of years? Ben Ho uses game theory to explain why we cooperate at all, why we keep promises that cost us, and why the words I am sorry almost never work the way we expect. Ben explains why an apology only repairs trust when it carries a real cost. He shares what an experiment with Uber revealed about late rides and unhappy customers, and why Bill Clinton never apologized over Monica Lewinsky - exposing the hidden trade-off between being liked and being respected. The conversation travels from early hunter-gatherer societies, where the first written records were accounting rather than poetry, to the Paris Climate Agreement - a deal built almost entirely on trust rather than enforcement. Ben makes the case that trust is the quiet infrastructure beneath markets, contracts, and treaties. Take it away, and none of it holds. [ Due to the holiday season, we are publishing this interview…

People in this episode

Host: Severin de Wit

Guest: Benjamin Ho

Topics covered

• trust
• economics
• game theory
• cooperation
• apologies
• society
• business

Keywords

• trust
• economics
• game theory
• apology
• cooperation
• society
• business
• contracts
• treaties

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Vassar College

Books & works: Why Trust Matters: An Economist's Guide to the Ties That Bind Us

Places: Paris

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• San Francisco: Where Progress Meets Distrust · May 6, 2026 · 24 min
• Trust Me, I'm Emotional · April 23, 2026 · 20 min
• Why Wikipedia Runs on Trust · April 8, 2026 · 20 min
• Leading with Trust · March 26, 2026 · 24 min
• When We Only Trust People Like Us · March 4, 2026 · 27 min