Building trust in the state with information: Evidence from urban Punjab

Adnan Khan, Sanval Nasim, Mahvish Shaukat and Andreas Stegmann

Journal of Public Economics, 2021, vol. 202, issue C

Abstract: Can communication designed to increase support for government policy and shift perceptions of state capacity redress deep-rooted mistrust in state institutions? This paper finds providing information on past state effectiveness, highlighting citizens’ cooperation in enabling past effectiveness or appealing to religious authorities’ support for government policy have limited impact on support for policy, perceptions of state capacity and trust in the state in Pakistan. This holds true on average and across important dimensions of heterogeneity after comparing treatment effects to those induced by an experimenter demand treatment. This paper highlights the limits of using information to build trust in state institutions, and the importance of measuring experimenter demand.

Keywords: Trust; State capacity; Information; COVID-19; Experimenter demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D02 D83 O12 O17 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:202:y:2021:i:c:s0047272721001304

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104494

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