Borderland resilience, willingness to help and trust–An empirical study of the French-German border area

• Published in: Journal of behavioral and experimental economics 2022-08, Vol.99, p.101898, Article 101898
• Main Authors: Klein, Miriam, Wiens, Marcus, Schultmann, Frank
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Borderland; Empirical research; Social capital; Willingness to help
• ISSN: 2214-8043; 2214-8051
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2022.101898

•Study borderland disaster resilience as prerequisite for economic stability and growth.•Comparison of regional and national trust and potential willingness to help.•Representative empirical study in Germany, France and the German- French border area. Border regions between different countries are of special interest in studying international relationships, which is a current topic in today’s globalized and interconnected world. To strengthen their disaster resilience, it is important for local decision-makers to understand the spontaneous willingness of the population to help affected people in their region. This article presents a novel framework based on Social Capital and Weiners’ Motivational Theory of Mutual Help to quantify peoples’ willingness to help (WTH) surveyed for the hypothetical case of a natural disaster. We compared the potential helping behavior between neighbored regions and neighbored countries in France and Germany, and also in the border area between the two countries. We found a significant correlation between trust and WTH in a neighboring region and identified determinants of WTH in a neighboring country. Implications for today’s world in terms of globalization and disaster response as the Covid-19 pandemic are discussed.