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Measuring Trust in European Public Institutions

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  • Marco Marozzi

Abstract

The problem of measuring the general level of trust in public institutions is addressed. A very general framework to compute an index of trust in public institutions is proposed and it is shown how to perform an uncertainty analysis of an index of trust to test its robustness. An application to data from the sixth round of the European Social Survey is presented. It is found that Scandinavian countries are the most trustful European countries in public institutions, whereas former communist countries as well as Iberian and Mediterranean ones are much less trustful. The governments of the least trustful countries in public institutions should be very careful in monitoring this issue and should think about introducing reforms to improve citizens’ trust. Improving trust in public institutions is central to improve social capital, participation in civic activities and law-abiding behavior and then governmental legitimacy. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

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  • Marco Marozzi, 2015. "Measuring Trust in European Public Institutions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 879-895, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:123:y:2015:i:3:p:879-895
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-014-0765-9
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    7. Sebastian Himmler & Job Exel & Werner Brouwer, 2022. "Did the COVID-19 pandemic change the willingness to pay for an early warning system for infectious diseases in Europe?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(1), pages 81-94, February.
    8. Aleksandra Maksimovska & Aleksandar Stojkov, 2019. "Composite Indicator of Social Responsiveness of Local Governments: An Empirical Mapping of the Networked Community Governance Paradigm," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 669-706, July.
    9. Marozzi Marco & Chowdhury Shovan, 2020. "An index of teaching performance based on students’ feedback," Monte Carlo Methods and Applications, De Gruyter, vol. 26(2), pages 83-91, June.
    10. Elena Prodi & Vincenzo Fasone & Marco R Di Tommaso, 2024. "Does industry resilience matter for postshock industrial policy? A focus on tourism-related industries," Tourism Economics, , vol. 30(2), pages 389-416, March.
    11. Elisa Barbieri & Manli Huang & Shenglei Pi & Mattia Tassinari, 2017. "Restructuring the Production of Medicines: An Investigation on the Pharmaceutical Sector in China and the Role of Mergers and Acquisitions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-21, October.
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    13. Canton Erik, 2023. "A Social Contract for the New Growth Agenda: The Role of Trust," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Sciendo, vol. 58(5), pages 240-244, September.
    14. Chao Shi & Kenneth C. Land, 2021. "The Data Envelopment Analysis and Equal Weights/Minimax Methods of Composite Social Indicator Construction: a Methodological Study of Data Sensitivity and Robustness," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1689-1716, August.
    15. Matheus Pereira Libório & Lívia Maria Leite Silva & Petr Iakovlevitch Ekel & Letícia Ribeiro Figueiredo & Patrícia Bernardes, 2022. "Consensus-Based Sub-Indicator Weighting Approach: Constructing Composite Indicators Compatible with Expert Opinion," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 1073-1099, December.
    16. Di Tommaso, Marco R. & Prodi, Elena & Pollio, Chiara & Barbieri, Elisa, 2023. "Conceptualizing and measuring “industry resilience”: Composite indicators for postshock industrial policy decision-making," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    17. Juan Carlos Martín & Concepción Román & Christian Viñán, 2020. "An Institutional Trust Indicator Based on Fuzzy Logic and Ideal Solutions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-14, May.
    18. Daskalopoulou, Eirini, 2018. "Voting turnout in Greece: expressive or instrumental?," MPRA Paper 88064, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Joep Burger & Jacqueline Beuningen, 2020. "Measuring well-being dispersion on discrete rating scales," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 749-773, June.
    20. Robinson, Stephen Cory, 2020. "Trust, transparency, and openness: How inclusion of cultural values shapes Nordic national public policy strategies for artificial intelligence (AI)," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    21. Irene Daskalopoulou, 2016. "Social capital at the outburst of the economic crisis in Greece, 2008-2010," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 9(2), pages 79-86, June.

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