Which Type of Trust Matters?:Interpersonal vs. Institutional vs. Political Trust

In Do Hwang

No 2017-15, Working Papers from Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea

Abstract: Although an increasing number of studies demonstrate the importance of trust in economic growth, they only focus on interpersonal trust. This paper considers various types of trust including interpersonal trust (i.e., trust in people), institutional trust (e.g., trust in the fair administration of justice, or trust in the protection of property rights), and political trust (e.g., trust in government or political parties), and investigates their impacts on growth. Using novel cross-country survey data, this paper finds that institutional trust is most robustly related to the economic growth in a cross-section of 46 countries. This paper also shows that there is a causal relationship between institutional trust and growth using panel data from those 46 countries. Hence, in contrast with the previous trust literature which focuses on trust in "people" as a "time-invariant cultural feature," this paper stresses trust in "social system" as an "institutions- dependent feature."

Keywords: Institutions and economic growth; Trust; Social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O17 P16 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 71 pages
Date: 2017-05-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-hpe, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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http://papers.bok.or.kr/RePEc_attach/wpaper/english/wp-2017-15.pdf Working Paper, 2017 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bok:wpaper:1715

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