1,721,052 research outputs found
Trust and Tax Morale
No full textThis empirical chapter examines the relation between trust and tax morale at both country and individual levels using a combined World Values Survey and European Values Study dataset covering 400,000 observations across 108 countries. The results overall indicate that although vertical trust matters, horizontal trust in the form of generalized trust is not linked to tax morale. We do, however, identify intercountry differences that warrant further exploration. We also demonstrate that generalized trust uncertainty, in contrast to vertical trust uncertainty, is negatively correlated with tax morale. Lastly, we provide some evidence that generalized trust varies under different vertical and governance conditions, but we are unable to identify any indirect path from generalized trust to tax morale using governance quality as a mediator
Measuring trust
No full textOnline Publication Date: Jan 2017This article focuses on the measurement of trust. First, we start with a brief conceptualization of trust, contrasting it with the concept of generalized trust. Second, we survey developments in trust measurement since the 1960s. Third, we summarize and try to systematize a number of measurement debates that have taken place. Fourth, we outline how trust measurement may develop in the future, discuss how differently formulated survey questions may abate some of the debates within the field, and present empirical data that follow some of these directions. Essentially we argue that trust—as opposed to generalized trust—should be measured through reliance on a set of more specific questions that measure expectations across a series of different situations
Welfare State Consequences for Trust: More Political than Social?
No full textThis chapter considers if and how social and political trust are affected by policy outputs and outcomes related to the welfare state. We survey how (dis)similar explanatory variables, causal mechanisms, and methodology are across four accumulations of studies. Specifically, we discuss contextual factors in “normal times” as well as effects of economic crises. We also assess individual-level factors focusing on “performance evaluations” and “personal experiences” of welfare state aspects and institutions. Overall, we find evidence for relationships between welfare state related variables and both types of trust. However, the evidence currently seems somewhat stronger and broader for political trust, suggesting that welfare state consequences for trust may well be “more political than social.
Ethnic Diversity and Social Trust
No full textDue to its wide-ranging implications for social cohesion in diversifying Western countries, the question of the potential negative consequences of ethnic diversity for social trust is arguably the most contentious question in the literature on social trust. In this chapter we critically review the empirical evidence for a negative relationship between contextual ethnic diversity (measured locally within countries) and social trust. We cautiously conclude that there are indications of a negative relationship, although with important variations across study characteristics including national setting, context unit analyzed, and conditioning on moderating influences. Building on the review, we highlight a number of paths for theoretical and methodological advances, which we argue would advance the literature on the relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust.</p
Cultural Persistence or Experiential Adaptation?
No full textStudying social trust of immigrants and descendants of immigrants provides leverage for testing whether trust is a persistent cultural trait or, rather, a trait formed and updated by contemporary experiences. The analytical thrust comes from the fact that immigrants were born in (or, in the case of descendants, have ties with) one country, but now resides in another. If trust is a cultural trait, immigrants’ trust should continue to reflect trust in their ancestral country; whereas their trust should be aligned with trust of natives in their present country if it is shaped by experiential conditioning. In this chapter we first review studies using immigrants to study the roots of trust. Second, we critically discuss these previous studies and pinpoint a number of theoretical, methodological, and substantive shortcomings as well as avenues for addressing these in future research. Finally, we provide new empirical evidence on the roots of trust using a new dataset of immigrants from Sweden.</p
Trust and Elections
No full text© Oxford University Press 2018. Political trust is closely related to various forms of electoral behavior. First, political trust tends to stimulate voter turnout, as distrusting citizens are less motivated to cast a vote. Second, low levels of political trust have been associated with an anti-incumbent vote and with populist voting. Third, taking part in elections can actually boost levels of political trust, although it is debatable whether this effect is limited to supporters of the winning party in elections. The occurrence of this winner-loser gap, however, seems to depend strongly on specific characteristics of electoral and party systems. Across liberal democracies, processes of electoral dealignment have led to lower levels of voter turnout and a higher vote share for populist parties. To a large extent, it remains to be investigated what causal role political trust plays in these processes.sponsorship: European Research Council|295920status: Publishe
A comment on "Inherited Trust and Growth"
No full textAlgan and Cahuc (2010) argue that “inherited trust” is a key factor in explaining growth rates across countries. They derive a measure of inherited trust by linking respondents’ “home countries: in the United States General Social Survey (1972-2004) and the 2000 wave of the World Values Survey. Algan and Cahuc then estimate trust levels for people born before 1910 (inherited trust in 1935) and afterwards (inherited trust in 2000). They show a strong link between economic growth rates and inherited trust. We do not challenge this result, but we do argue that: (1) The 2000 World Values Survey has many anomalous results; (2) the estimates for inherited trust in 1935 are mostly based upon tiny samples for most ethnic heritage groups in the General Social Survey; and (3) Algan and Cahuc’s findings are based upon two-tailed rather than one-tailed tests. We reestimate their model using the more reliable waves of the World Values Survey and find much weaker relationships between inherited trust in 1935 and trust in the home country. We also suggest caution in the overall measure of inherited trust in 1935
- …
