IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bistud/v17y2022i2p155-187n1.html

How Welfare Policies Can Change Trust – A Social Experiment Assessing the Impact of Social Assistance Policy on Political and Social Trust

Author

Listed:
  • Betkó János

    (Sociology, Radboud Universiteit, 6500 HC, Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands)

  • Spierings Niels

    (Sociology, Radboud Universiteit, 6500 HC, Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands)

  • Gesthuizen Maurice

    (Sociology, Radboud Universiteit, 6500 HC, Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands)

  • Scheepers Peer

    (Sociology, Radboud Universiteit, 6500 HC, Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands)

Abstract

While there is a substantive literature on the link between welfare states and individuals’ trust, little is known about the micro-linkage of the conditionality of welfare as a driver of trust. This study presents a unique randomized social experiment investigating this link. Recipients of the regular Dutch social assistance policy are compared to recipients of two alternative schemes inspired by the basic income and based on a more trusting and unconditional approach, testing the main reciprocity argument in the literature: a trusting government will harvest trust from welfare recipients in return. Particularly trust in local government – the level at which the experiment was implemented – increases among recipients of the alternative treatments. Subsequently, we innovatively theorize and test rigorously which mediating mechanisms might explain this increase. Policy evaluation, social integration, and psychological well-being are studied in this respect. Of these, the only underlying mechanism proven to mediate the treatment effect in local political trust, is citizens’ satisfaction with policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Betkó János & Spierings Niels & Gesthuizen Maurice & Scheepers Peer, 2022. "How Welfare Policies Can Change Trust – A Social Experiment Assessing the Impact of Social Assistance Policy on Political and Social Trust," Basic Income Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 17(2), pages 155-187, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bistud:v:17:y:2022:i:2:p:155-187:n:1
    DOI: 10.1515/bis-2021-0029
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2021-0029
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/bis-2021-0029?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Inglis, Greig & McHardy, Fiona & Sosu, Edward & McAteer, John & Biggs, Hannah, 2019. "Health inequality implications from a qualitative study of experiences of poverty stigma in Scotland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 43-49.
    2. Želinský, Tomáš & Soroková, Tatiana & Petríková, Daniela, 2018. "Economic Characteristics and Subjective Well-Being," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 50(3), pages 334-364.
    3. Reading, Richard & Reynolds, Shirley, 2001. "Debt, social disadvantage and maternal depression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 441-453, August.
    4. Andreas Bergh & Christian Bjørnskov, 2011. "Historical Trust Levels Predict the Current Size of the Welfare State," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 1-19, February.
    5. János Betkó & Niels Spierings & Maurice Gesthuizen & Peer Scheepers, 2019. "The Who and the Why? Selection Bias in an Unconditional Basic Income Inspired Social Assistance Experiment," Contributions to Economics, in: Lei Delsen (ed.), Empirical Research on an Unconditional Basic Income in Europe, chapter 0, pages 139-170, Springer.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    7. Lei Delsen, 2019. "Unconditional Basic Income and Welfare State Reform in Representative Democracies," Contributions to Economics, in: Lei Delsen (ed.), Empirical Research on an Unconditional Basic Income in Europe, chapter 0, pages 1-27, Springer.
    8. Bohnet, Iris & Frey, Bruno S. & Huck, Steffen, 2001. "More Order with Less Law: On Contract Enforcement, Trust, and Crowding," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 131-144, March.
    9. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lindeboom, Maarten & van der Klaauw, Bas & Vriend, Sandra, 2015. "The effect of audit regimes on applications for long-term care," CEPR Discussion Papers 10572, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Katuščák, Peter & Miklánek, Tomáš, 2025. "Do fixed-prize lotteries crowd out intrinsically-motivated public good contributions?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    3. Peter Katuscak & Tomas Miklanek, 2018. "Do Fixed-Prize Lotteries Crowd Out Public Good Contributions Driven by Social Preferences?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp617, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    4. Adriani, Fabrizio & Sonderegger, Silvia, 2015. "Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: An evolutionary approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 102-116.
    5. Bruno S. Frey, 2003. "Flexible Citizenship for a Global Society," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 2(1), pages 93-114, February.
    6. Fehr, Ernst & Falk, Armin, 2002. "Psychological foundations of incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 687-724, May.
    7. MARTIN Ludivine, 2007. "The impact of technological changes on incentives and motivations to work hard," IRISS Working Paper Series 2007-15, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    8. Bruno S. Frey & Matthias Benz, 2004. "From Imperialism to Inspiration: A Survey of Economics and Psychology," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & Alain Marciano & Jochen Runde (ed.), The Elgar Companion To Economics and Philosophy, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. repec:pri:wwseco:dp230 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Samuel Bowles, 2010. "The Coevolution of Institutions and Preferences: History and Theory," Chapters, in: Neri Salvadori (ed.), Institutional and Social Dynamics of Growth and Distribution, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. repec:awi:wpaper:0485 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Karl-Dieter Opp, 2013. "Norms and rationality. Is moral behavior a form of rational action?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 383-409, March.
    13. Hueth, Brent & Ligon, Ethan & Melkonyan, Tigran A., 2008. "Interactions between Explicit and Implicit Contracting: Evidence from California Agriculture," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6068, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Marc Deschamps & Julien Pénin, 2014. "La construction d’une sanction. Le cas des pénalités de retard dans les centres de loisirs de la commune d’Asnières-sur-Seine," Working Papers of BETA 2014-20, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    15. Ashraf, Nava & Bohnet, Iris & Piankov, Nikita, 2003. "Is Trust a Bad Investment?," Working Paper Series rwp03-047, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Bruno S. Frey, 2005. "Zwei Utopien jenseits des Weltstaates und der Anarchie," IEW - Working Papers 258, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    17. Bruno Deffains & Claude Fluet, 2013. "Legal Liability when Individuals Have Moral Concerns," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(4), pages 930-955, August.
    18. Kirsten Bregn, 2013. "Detrimental Effects of Performance-Related Pay in the Public Sector? On the Need for a Broader Theoretical Perspective," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 21-35, March.
    19. Roberto Galbiati & Karl Schlag & Joël van der Weele, 2009. "Can Sanctions Induce Pessimism? An Experiment," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 024, University of Siena.
    20. Frank A.G. den Butter, 2010. "Transaction Management: Value Creation by Reducing Transaction Costs," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 10-051/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    21. Bruno Frey, 2017. "Policy consequences of pay-for-performance and crowding-out," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 1(1), pages 55-59, February.
    22. Lin, Chung-cheng, 2004. "Bonding, shirking and adverse selection," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 545-560, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bistud:v:17:y:2022:i:2:p:155-187:n:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.