Trust in Government: Causes, consequences and solutions

This blog post on trust in governments is a compilation of presentations given at the OECD Workshop entitled "Joint Learning for an OECD Trust Strategy", held on 14 October 2013. The post, composed by Melinda Deleuze, is part of Wikiprogress' December spotlight on governance.

During the workshop, a variety of topics were discussed regarding trust in governments. Some common themes were why measuring trust is important, how to measure trust, the reflection of trust in governments on quality of governments, the crisis' impact on trust and reasons for lack of trust.

To give some highlights:

• Trust in government is intermingled with many other areas, namely:
• policy effectiveness
• economic policy
• the economy
• the economic crisis
• compliance
• accountability
• regulation
• education
• social capital

• After the crisis, in Iceland, trust in institutions remained relatively high, trust in politicians very low, and voter turnout relatively high.
• To strengthen the quality of government, there should be:
• free universal education
• universal social services/insurance systems
• fairness (impartiality) in the implementation of public policies
• merit-based recruitment and promotion to the civil service
• gender equality

•  Unemployment has a strong, negative effect on trust in public institutions. 

In the presentation below, Yann Algan discusses the relationships between institutions, inequality/segmentation and trust. He also examines how to identify impact of policy on trust.

In the presentation below, Tracy Burns discusses trends in governance and education, satisfaction with the education system, accountability, and positive outcomes possible with educated adults.

 

In the presentation below,  Diane Coyle discusses how trust affects the economy and the challenges faced.

In the presentation below, Dóra Györffy discusses trust in-depth including its relationship with decision-making, economic policy, popularity of government and its influence on the crisis.

In the presentation below, Pall Thorhallsson discusses the pre-crash situation, the nature of the 2008 crash, and the crash's impact on trust. He also mentions reasons for the lacking trust.

 

In the presentation below, Marco Mira d’Ercole discusses the interest and importance of trust, how trust should be measured and trust's broader relationship with the quality of democratic institutions.

 

In the presentation below, Felix Roth discusses the consequences of citizens declining trust and the driving factors of declining trust in Europe. He also provides an econometric analysis of trust and unemployment.

In the presentation below,  Bo Rothstein discusses how to capture the quality of government and its impact on social trust. He also provides suggestions for what can be done to strengthen quality of government.

In the presentation below, Frédérique Six discusses effective regulation, the trust triangle, compliance and a trust regime.

In the presentation below,  Mario Solis-Garcia discusses why trust matters and uses a simple economic model to see how government trust influences environment, government, households and timing.

 

 

  

 

Mind the gap: Well-being differences growing in several countries in the EU

This post, written by Saamah Abdallah of the new economics foundation (nef), is part of the Wikiprogress focus on How's Life? 2013 chapter on "Well-being and the global financial crisis" and or series on Subjective Well-being.

There is a strong perception that the economic crisis has ‘disproportionately hit those who are already vulnerable’ (European Commission) and has ‘deepened inequalities’. This month, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions has published a report showing that, in several countries in the EU, this growing inequality can be seen in well-being as well as more traditional metrics such as income inequality.

The report looks at how subjective well-being changed between 2007 and 2011 in the 27 countries of the EU over that time. As might be expected, average life satisfaction in several countries fell significantly, including in Greece and Estonia, as well as in some Nordic countries such as Sweden and Finland.  But it rose in several other countries, including the new accession countries (Romania and Bulgaria), Poland, Spain and Italy. Some countries presented mixed patterns, with some measures appearing to show increases in well-being, whilst others showed decreases (for example perceived social exclusion rose in Spain despite increases in life satisfaction). Overall, the pattern was one of declining well-being on the majority of measures.

What was more interesting, however, was the differences in trends when one looked at different population groups within countries. For example, whilst average life satisfaction did not change in the UK and Ireland, it fell significantly for those in the bottom income quartile, and rose significantly for those in the top income quartile.  Meanwhile in Spain, Italy and Portugal, the surprising increase in life satisfaction can only be seen for those in the top half of the income distribution – there was no increase in life satisfaction for people in the bottom half of the income distribution. Indeed, overall happiness fell significantly for those in the second income quartile and perceived social exclusion rose. Finally, in Greece, despite the brutal economic crisis, there has been no fall in life satisfaction for those in the top half of the income distribution.  In contrast, average life satisfaction fell by a whole 1.0 points (on a scale of 1-10) for those in the bottom income quartile.

In summary – the effects of the economic crisis are not being felt equally in many parts of Europe.  And whilst some people argue that high economic inequality is acceptable and even desirable because it stimulates effort, it is hard to see a positive side to growing well-being inequality. You can theoretically argue that people have chosen to forfeit income in exchange for more free time, for example, but you can’t argue that people have willingly chosen to have lower well-being.  And reducing the well-being of the poorest is hardly an effective way to increase their motivation, given that it is usually positive emotions that lead to people being able to improve their situation (according to broaden-and-build theory).  Growing well-being inequality is the clearest manifestation yet of the unfair impact of the economic crisis.

Saamah Abdallah

Read "Quality of life in Europe: Subjective well-being".