Research Insights: How Can Governments Build Trust?
Peer Reviewed
Date issued
Feb 2021
Publication
Subject
Behavioral Economics;
Open Government;
Transparency and Anticorruption;
Municipal Government;
Political Trust
JEL code
C83 - Survey Methods • Sampling Methods;
D83 - Search • Learning • Information and Knowledge • Communication • Belief • Unawareness;
H40 - Publicly Provided Goods: General;
C38 - Classification Methods • Cluster Analysis • Principal Components • Factor Models;
C99 - Design of Experiments: Other;
D90 - Intertemporal Choice: General
Country
Argentina
Category
Catalogs and Brochures
Feedback on government performance can affect how much citizens trust government. The City of Buenos Aires ran an experiment testing different framings of government performance and their impact on citizens perceptions of institutional trust. Government perceptions were not changed by a language of empathy nor efficiency in communications, but trust was increased by providing positive feedback. The effect of communications had a significantly smaller impact on those already familiar with performance information, suggesting that providing information can have a long-lasting effect on citizens perceptions of government efficiency.
