The Role of Public Trust in People's Subjective Well-Being
Penn collection
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
India
public institutions
India Human Development Survey
economic well-being
Demography, Population, and Ecology
Economics
Law and Society
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Sociology
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Contributor
Abstract
Kenneth Arrow, perhaps the most influential economist after John Maynard Keynes in the 20th century, viewed trust as a lubricant that fosters cooperative behaviour and thus facilitates mutually advantageous economic exchanges in the presence of incomplete contracts and imperfect information. Recent research has confirmed the beneficial effects of trust in government on economic performance. The obverse, that an erosion of trust in public institutions (state, judiciary and police) has deleterious effects on economic performance, is equally true. Various recent accounts do not just corroborate an erosion of trust in governance, but also point to the imperative of strengthening it to break out of the deep recession that India’s economy is in. The fiscal stimulus has been too little, too late.