Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected public trust? Evidence for the US and the Netherlands

Carin van der Cruijsen, Jakob de Haan and Nicole Jonker

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 200, issue C, 1010-1024

Abstract: Using two large-scale surveys among households, we examine the drivers of public trust in banks, insurance companies, BigTechs, and other people in the United States and the Netherlands, and analyse whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected public trust. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic did not have much effect on trust in financial institutions in the US and the Netherlands. However, trust in BigTechs and trust in other people declined in both countries, especially in the US. Our regression results show that the relationship between respondents’ characteristics and (changes in) trust differs across the US and the Netherlands. However, for both countries we find evidence that individuals with poor health have lower levels of trust than healthy people, and that trust among poor-health respondents dropped more during the pandemic. Furthermore, trust in other people is positively related to trust in banks, insurance companies, and BigTechs.

Keywords: Trust; COVID-19; Financial institutions; BigTechs; Health; Consumer survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D83 E58 G21 G22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122002414
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected public trust? Evidence for the US and the Netherlands (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:200:y:2022:i:c:p:1010-1024

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.07.006

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().