IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v234y2025ics0167268125001349.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Anti-corruption and political trust: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Fang, Ming
  • Lai, Weizheng
  • Xia, Congling

Abstract

How can anti-corruption efforts influence political trust in government? We investigate this question through the lens of China’s recent anti-corruption campaign, launched in 2013, which has disclosed many corruption investigations to the public for the first time. By analyzing a large individual panel dataset, we show that, on average, the campaign has reduced political trust, particularly among groups less informed about corruption before the campaign. We document strong heterogeneity in changes in political trust, possibly driven by prior political attitudes, as captured by previous unpleasant experiences with the government, pro-government indoctrination, and Confucian norms. Our results fit a model in which polarization is rationalized by different priors about the government. We also rule out several alternative explanations for our findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Fang, Ming & Lai, Weizheng & Xia, Congling, 2025. "Anti-corruption and political trust: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:234:y:2025:i:c:s0167268125001349
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268125001349
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107015?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 search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political trust; China; Corruption; Anti-corruption campaign;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:eee:jeborg:v:234:y:2025:i:c:s0167268125001349. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.