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Trust and State Effectiveness: The Political Economy of Compliance

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  • Timothy Besley
  • Sacha Dray

Abstract

This paper explores the link between trust in government, policymaking and compliance. It focuses on a specific channel whereby citizens who are convinced of the merits of a policy are more motivated to comply with it. This, in turn, reduces the government’s cost of implementing this policy and may also increase the set of feasible interventions. As a result, state effectiveness is greater when citizens trust their government. The paper discusses alternative approaches to modelling the origins of trust, especially the link to the design of political institutions. We then provide empirical evidence consistent with the model’s findings that compliance is increasing in government trust using the Integrated Values Survey and voluntary compliance during COVID-19 in the United Kingdom.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy Besley & Sacha Dray, 2024. "Trust and State Effectiveness: The Political Economy of Compliance," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(662), pages 2225-2251.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:134:y:2024:i:662:p:2225-2251.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/ueae030
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    1. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    2. Nadja Dwenger & Henrik Kleven & Imran Rasul & Johannes Rincke, 2016. "Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations for Tax Compliance: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Germany," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 203-232, August.
    3. Frank A. Cowell, 1990. "Cheating the Government: The Economics of Evasion," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262532484, December.
    4. Williams, Martin J., 2021. "Beyond state capacity: bureaucratic performance, policy implementation and reform," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 339-357, April.
    5. Christian Welzel & Ronald Inglehart, 2010. "Agency, Values, and Well-Being: A Human Development Model," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 43-63, May.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Frost, Margaret H. & Kim, SangEun & Scartascini, Carlos & Zamora, Paula & Zechmeister, Elizabeth J., 2025. "Disaster and political trust: Evidence from the 2017 Mexico city earthquake," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    3. Sisak, Dana & Swank, Otto, 2025. "Polarization, Trust and Policy Capacity - Strategic Bureaucrat Appointments under Electoral Incentives," VfS Annual Conference 2025 (Cologne): Revival of Industrial Policy 325374, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Belmonte, Alessandro & Bove, Vincenzo & Di Salvatore, Jessica, 2025. "Bad signals? Foreign aid and tax morale across Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    5. Kevin Grieco & Abou Bakarr Kamara & Niccolo F. Meriggi & Julian Michel & Prichard Wilson, 2025. "Participation, legitimacy and fiscal capacity in weak states: Evidence from participatory budgeting," CSAE Working Paper Series 2025-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    6. Xiangzhe Xu & Ran Wu, 2025. "When Clear Skies Cloud Trust: Environmental Cues and the Paradox of Confidence in Government," Papers 2509.23554, arXiv.org.
    7. Tim Friehe & Christian Pfeifer, 2024. "Predicting satisfaction with democracy in Germany using local economic conditions, social capital, and individual characteristics," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 335-377, September.

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    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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