Growth Experiences and Trust in Government

Tim Besley, Chris Dann and Sacha Dray

No 20062, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between economic growth and trust in government using variation in GDP growth experienced since birth. We assemble a newly harmonized global dataset across ten major opinion surveys, comprising 2.8 million respondents in 161 countries since 1990. Exploiting cohort-level variation, we first find that individuals with higher GDP growth experiences are more trusting of their governments, with largest effect sizes in democracies. Higher growth experiences are also associated with improved perceptions of government performance and living standards. We find no similar channel between growth experiences and interpersonal trust. Second, more recent growth experiences appear to matter most for trust in government, with no detectable effect of growth experienced during one's formative years, closer to birth or before birth. Third, we find evidence of a "trust paradox" whereby average trust in government is lower in democracies than in autocracies. Our results are robust to a range of falsification exercises, robustness checks and are also found using the American National Election Studies for the United States.

Date: 2025-03
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