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Individual trust: does quality of local institutions matter?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2018

Silvia Camussi  and
Anna Laura Mancini Open the ORCID record for Anna Laura Mancini [Opens in a new window]
Silvia Camussi
Affiliation:
Economic Research Unit, Turin Branch, Bank of Italy
Anna Laura Mancini*
Affiliation:
Economic Research Unit, Turin Branch, Bank of Italy
*
*Corresponding author. Email: annalaura.mancini@bancaditalia.it
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Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of trust by investigating how the quality of local services influences individuals’ generalized trust and trust in local governments. Using data from Italian national statistical office (Istat) Aspects of Daily Life survey, after building a new measure for the quality of local services, we study its effect on individuals’ trust using linear regressions techniques. Our findings suggest that good local public services have a positive impact on individuals’ trust, the effect being stronger for trust in local institutions. Our results are robust to potential endogeneity issues, tested using a two-step GMM estimation procedure, and to potential omitted variables bias, according to the method proposed by Altonji et al. (2005).

Keywords

Trusttrust in local institutionsquality of public serviceslinear regressionIV estimation
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , June 2019 , pp. 487 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2018 

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