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Can changes in social trust be explained by inequality?

Bendz, Olof LU and Alagic, Sanjin LU (2019) NEKH01 20191
Department of Economics
Abstract
This paper aims to investigate the development of social trust over time globally, as well as separately for continents and countries. This is done by using data from six different surveys and through an interpolation method making the survey measures comparable, resulting in a long and continuous data set. Consequently, with Gini measures from the new Standardized World Income Inequality Database, we investigate if changes in social trust is related to changes in income inequality. We conclude that social trust is varying in a large proportion of the countries studied, questioning earlier claims of social trust as a highly stable property over time. We find that social trust has been significantly increasing in Europe steadily since 2002.... (More)
This paper aims to investigate the development of social trust over time globally, as well as separately for continents and countries. This is done by using data from six different surveys and through an interpolation method making the survey measures comparable, resulting in a long and continuous data set. Consequently, with Gini measures from the new Standardized World Income Inequality Database, we investigate if changes in social trust is related to changes in income inequality. We conclude that social trust is varying in a large proportion of the countries studied, questioning earlier claims of social trust as a highly stable property over time. We find that social trust has been significantly increasing in Europe steadily since 2002. We also find that social trust in Latin America is fluctuating significantly, with a minimum around year 2003 and a maximum around year 2010. By regressing changes in trust on changes in income inequality, also including lagged effects and controlling for GDP/capita and degree of democracy, we do not find that the observed changes in social trust is related to changes in income inequality. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Bendz, Olof LU and Alagic, Sanjin LU
supervisor
organization
alternative title
A time series analysis of social trust over time and its association with changing inequality
course
NEKH01 20191
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
social trust, inequality, time series
language
English
id
8988673
date added to LUP
2019-08-08 10:22:47
date last changed
2019-08-08 10:22:47
@misc{8988673,
  abstract     = {{This paper aims to investigate the development of social trust over time globally, as well as separately for continents and countries. This is done by using data from six different surveys and through an interpolation method making the survey measures comparable, resulting in a long and continuous data set. Consequently, with Gini measures from the new Standardized World Income Inequality Database, we investigate if changes in social trust is related to changes in income inequality. We conclude that social trust is varying in a large proportion of the countries studied, questioning earlier claims of social trust as a highly stable property over time. We find that social trust has been significantly increasing in Europe steadily since 2002. We also find that social trust in Latin America is fluctuating significantly, with a minimum around year 2003 and a maximum around year 2010. By regressing changes in trust on changes in income inequality, also including lagged effects and controlling for GDP/capita and degree of democracy, we do not find that the observed changes in social trust is related to changes in income inequality.}},
  author       = {{Bendz, Olof and Alagic, Sanjin}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Can changes in social trust be explained by inequality?}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}