Institutions matter: The impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the political trust of young Europeans.
J Reg Sci
; 2022 Mar 09.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1708459
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we study the short-run evolution of political trust during the recent covid-19 pandemic using survey data for a sample of young individuals living in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. In particular, we analyze whether pre-pandemic perceptions and experiences of citizens about various dimensions of local governments and institutional quality had any mediating effect on the evolution of political trust after the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. The results show a relative increase in political trust of about 9% in regions with high institutional quality (75th percentile) compared with regions with low institutional quality (25th percentile) over the period 2019-2020. This divergence can be associated with either a better performance of policymakers in high-quality institutions regions, or to more positive attitudes toward politicians by citizens that, before the pandemic, believed to live in regions with efficient institutions. Overall results are not affected by the inclusion of regional fixed effects or by possible differential evolution of political trust according to a large set of observable regional characteristics.
Full text:
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Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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