Trust and the quality of formal institutions
Trust and the quality of formal institutions

Summary/Abstract: Motivation: Trust plays an important role in the functioning of individuals at every leveland research confirms that it is linked to economic development. As the levels of trust dif-fer across the countries it is crucial to explore the reasons for such variation and to identifydeterminants of trust. Trust is often used in research to operationalise informal institu-tions, however, it can also reflect the quality of formal institutions. Therefore, it is vitalto investigate whether trust is to a large extent a deeply rooted attitude, which does notlend itself to intentional shaping or it can be generated by better institutional performance. It remains unclear how institutional performance influences trust, there are manydoubts concerning for example the diversion of this relation. The evidence on the relation-ships between generalised and institutional trust also persists mixed.Aim: The paper aims to investigate the relationship between generalised and institutionaltrust with the quality of formal institutions.Results: The research confirms the positive relationship between generalised and institu-tional trust for the total group of 22 European countries. Similarly, higher levels of bothkinds of trust are related to better institutional performance. However, when the coun-tries are analysed separately as capitalist and post-socialist, the results differ. The afore-mentioned relationships are confirmed for capitalist countries. Post-socialist countries arecharacterized by a lower level of trust and lower quality of institutions. Nevertheless, forthis group, there is no evidence for the relationship between generalised and institutionaltrust, and only partial evidence for the relationship between institutional trust and institu-tional performance. The results support the concepts underlining the influence of institutions’ quality on trust but some observations are inclined to concepts suggesting that trust s culturally determined and regardless of institutional performance decades are needed for its development.

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