IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/34472.html

A Note on Factors Influencing Trust in Government

Author

Listed:
  • Michael J. Boskin
  • Alexander Kleiner
  • Ian T. Whiton

Abstract

Responses to surveys eliciting evaluations of trust in government, both generally and in specific areas, have varied over time and across countries. Using consistent survey data for 34 OECD countries from 2007-2023, we estimate a model of factors determining levels of trust. We employ a series of econometric techniques of increasing sophistication. The level and growth rate of real income per capita, social spending per capita, the degree of decentralization, and economic freedom all exert positive effects on trust. Inflation, unemployment, and debt per capita negatively affect trust. Additionally, higher levels of human capital and the elderly share of the population negatively affect trust. In the context of trust in government, the estimates suggest a heavier weight on inflation than on unemployment when compared to Okun’s misery index, which weights them equally. Additionally, the estimates are used to evaluate combinations of policies, e.g. debt-financed increases in social spending that affect inflation and/or unemployment, to determine the net effect on trust in government.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael J. Boskin & Alexander Kleiner & Ian T. Whiton, 2025. "A Note on Factors Influencing Trust in Government," NBER Working Papers 34472, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34472
    Note: PE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w34472.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
    • P1 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies
    • P10 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - General
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • P44 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - National Income, Product, and Expenditure; Money; Inflation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:34472. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.