IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v157y2013i1p269-286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does social trust determine the size of the welfare state? Evidence using historical identification

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Bjørnskov
  • Gert Svendsen

Abstract

Most modern welfare states offer an extensive array of services and benefits that are wholly or partly financed by tax revenue. One missing link in explaining the long-run sustainability of such comprehensive welfare states could be the already-existing stock of trust. Indeed, our cross-country results suggest that trust determines the size of welfare states as well as three features that are arguably necessary for their preservation: high levels of political confidence, strong legal institutions protecting private property rights, and low levels of bureaucratic corruption. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Bjørnskov & Gert Svendsen, 2013. "Does social trust determine the size of the welfare state? Evidence using historical identification," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 269-286, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:157:y:2013:i:1:p:269-286
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-012-9944-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-012-9944-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-012-9944-x?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "Regulation and Distrust," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1015-1049.
    2. Jeffrey V. Butler & Paola Giuliano & Luigi Guiso, 2016. "The Right Amount Of Trust," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(5), pages 1155-1180, October.
    3. Nathan Nunn, 2008. "The Long-term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 139-176.
    4. Andreas Bergh, 2004. "The Universal Welfare State: Theory and the Case of Sweden," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(4), pages 745-766, December.
    5. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    6. Friedrich Heinemann & Benjamin Tanz, 2008. "The impact of trust on reforms," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 173-185.
    7. Guinnane Timothy W., 2005. "Trust: A Concept Too Many," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 46(1), pages 77-92, June.
    8. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2010. "Inherited Trust and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2060-2092, December.
    9. Blaine Robbins, 2012. "Institutional Quality and Generalized Trust: A Nonrecursive Causal Model," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(2), pages 235-258, June.
    10. Christian Bjørnskov, 2007. "Determinants of generalized trust: A cross-country comparison," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 1-21, January.
    11. Pierre Cahuc & Yann Algan, 2009. "Civic Virtue and Labor Market Institutions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 111-145, January.
    12. Guido Tabellini, 2008. "The Scope of Cooperation: Values and Incentives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 123(3), pages 905-950.
    13. Michael Naef & Jürgen Schupp, 2009. "Measuring Trust: Experiments and Surveys in Contrast and Combination," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 167, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    14. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/432sbils8u9t7qa99cii5psht1 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Lindbeck, A., 1994. "Welfare State Disincentives with Endogenous Habits and Norms," Papers 589, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
    17. Carsten Jensen & Gert Tinggaard Svendsen, 2011. "Giving money to strangers: European welfare states and social trust," International Journal of Social Welfare, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 3-9, January.
    18. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2012. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Risk and Trust Attitudes," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 645-677.
    19. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2011. "Family Ties And Political Participation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(5), pages 817-839, October.
    20. Peter, Klara Sabirianova & Buttrick, Steve & Duncan, Denvil, 2010. "Global Reform of Personal Income Taxation, 1981–2005: Evidence From 189 Countries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(3), pages 447-478, September.
    21. 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.
    22. Lindbeck, Assar, 1995. " Welfare State Disincentives with Endogenous Habits and Norms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(4), pages 477-494, December.
    23. Friedrich Heinemann & Benjamin Tanz, 2008. "The impact of trust on reforms," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 173-185.
    24. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8812 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Holcombe, Randall G. & Rodet, Cortney S., 2012. "Rule of law and the size of government," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 49-69, March.
    26. Christian Bjørnskov, 2010. "How does social trust lead to better governance? An attempt to separate electoral and bureaucratic mechanisms," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 323-346, July.
    27. Dearmon, Jacob & Grier, Kevin, 2009. "Trust and development," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 210-220, August.
    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. Berggren, Niclas & Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov & Hellström, Jörgen, 2014. "Social trust and central-bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 425-439.
    2. Wahl, Fabian, 2012. "Why it matters what people think: Beliefs, legal origins and the deep roots of trust," FZID Discussion Papers 52-2012, University of Hohenheim, Center for Research on Innovation and Services (FZID).
    3. Christian Bjørnskov & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2013. "Is trust the missing root of institutions, education, and development?," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 157(3-4), pages 641-669, December.
    4. Christian Bjørnskov & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2015. "The productivity of trust," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, June.
    5. Christian Bjørnskov, 2012. "On the determinants of honesty perceptions in the United States," Rationality and Society, , vol. 24(3), pages 257-294, August.
    6. Bergh, Andreas & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2014. "Trust, welfare states and income equality: Sorting out the causality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 183-199.
    7. Algan, Yann & Cahuc, Pierre, 2014. "Trust, Growth, and Well-Being: New Evidence and Policy Implications," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 2, pages 49-120, Elsevier.
    8. Bergh, Andreas & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2013. "Trust, Welfare States and Income Equality: What Causes What?," Working Paper Series 994, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    9. Niclas Berggren & Christian Bjørnskov, 2017. "The Market‐Promoting and Market‐Preserving Role of Social Trust in Reforms of Policies and Institutions," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(1), pages 3-25, July.
    10. Ljunge, Martin, 2014. "Trust issues: Evidence on the intergenerational trust transmission among children of immigrants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 175-196.
    11. Markus Leibrecht & Hans Pitlik, 2014. "Generalised Trust, Institutional and Political Constraints on the Executive and Deregulation of Markets," WIFO Working Papers 481, WIFO.
    12. Xu, Xu & Jin, Xin, 2018. "The autocratic roots of social distrust," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 362-380.
    13. Andreas Lichter & Max Löffler & Sebastian Siegloch, 2021. "The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 741-789.
    14. Christian Bjørnskov & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2012. "Trust as the missing root of institutions, education, and development," Working Papers CEB 12-031, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2021. "Civic honesty and cultures of trust," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    16. Blaine Robbins, 2013. "Cooperation without Culture? The Null Effect of Generalized Trust on Intentional Homicide: A Cross-National Panel Analysis, 1995–2009," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-8, March.
    17. John F. Helliwell & Shun Wang & Jinwen Xu, 2016. "How Durable are Social Norms? Immigrant Trust and Generosity in 132 Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 201-219, August.
    18. Gur, Nurullah & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2017. "Trust and delegation: Theory and evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 644-657.
    19. Peiró-Palomino, Jesús & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2013. "Can trust effects on development be generalized? A response by quantile," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 377-390.
    20. Leibrecht, Markus & Pitlik, Hans, 2015. "Social trust, institutional and political constraints on the executive and deregulation of markets," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 249-268.

    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:kap:pubcho:v:157:y:2013:i:1:p:269-286. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.