Trust, welfare states and income equality: Sorting out the causality
(2014) In European Journal of Political Economy 35. p.183-199- Abstract
- The cross-country correlation between social trust and income equality is well documented, but few studies examine the direction of causality. We show theoretically that by facilitating cooperation, trust may lead to more equal outcomes, while the feedback from inequality to trust is ambiguous. Using a structural equation model estimated on a large country sample, we find that trust has a positive effect on both market and net income equality. Larger welfare states lead to higher net equality but neither net income equality nor welfare state size seems to have a causal effect on trust. We conclude that while trust facilitates welfare state policies that may reduce net inequality, this decrease in inequality does not increase trust. (C)... (More)
- The cross-country correlation between social trust and income equality is well documented, but few studies examine the direction of causality. We show theoretically that by facilitating cooperation, trust may lead to more equal outcomes, while the feedback from inequality to trust is ambiguous. Using a structural equation model estimated on a large country sample, we find that trust has a positive effect on both market and net income equality. Larger welfare states lead to higher net equality but neither net income equality nor welfare state size seems to have a causal effect on trust. We conclude that while trust facilitates welfare state policies that may reduce net inequality, this decrease in inequality does not increase trust. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4713939
- author
- Bergh, Andreas LU and Bjornskov, Christian
- organization
- publishing date
- 2014
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Social trust, Inequality, Welfare state
- in
- European Journal of Political Economy
- volume
- 35
- pages
- 183 - 199
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000341480800013
- scopus:84903886042
- ISSN
- 0176-2680
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2014.06.002
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- befbad48-666d-4e0d-a09d-72de2745addc (old id 4713939)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 10:58:55
- date last changed
- 2025-03-12 11:55:12
@article{befbad48-666d-4e0d-a09d-72de2745addc,
abstract = {{The cross-country correlation between social trust and income equality is well documented, but few studies examine the direction of causality. We show theoretically that by facilitating cooperation, trust may lead to more equal outcomes, while the feedback from inequality to trust is ambiguous. Using a structural equation model estimated on a large country sample, we find that trust has a positive effect on both market and net income equality. Larger welfare states lead to higher net equality but neither net income equality nor welfare state size seems to have a causal effect on trust. We conclude that while trust facilitates welfare state policies that may reduce net inequality, this decrease in inequality does not increase trust. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.}},
author = {{Bergh, Andreas and Bjornskov, Christian}},
issn = {{0176-2680}},
keywords = {{Social trust; Inequality; Welfare state}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{183--199}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{European Journal of Political Economy}},
title = {{Trust, welfare states and income equality: Sorting out the causality}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2014.06.002}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2014.06.002}},
volume = {{35}},
year = {{2014}},
}