A Political Model of Trust

Long‐term decline of regions and the rise of populism: The case of Germany

“…Although this perception may be skewed, those who perceive themselves as being at the bottom or unfairly treated tend to feel threatened and insecure, creating less trust in the system. Those who hold these beliefs tend to reject arguments that rebut their perceptions (e.g., Kuziemko et al 2015;Agranov et al 2020). Becker et al (2017) combine a multitude of regional data sources in multivariate analyses to highlight that regional support for Brexit was related to: i) dependence on manufacturing jobs, ii) low incomes, iii) high unemployment and iv) lower educational levels.…”

Voter Information and Distributive Politics

“…Since I consider a political agency model with multiple principals, a closely related paper is Lohmann (1998), which features heterogeneity in politicians' abilities and heterogeneously informed voters and shows how these, coupled with heterogeneous voters preferences, lead to benefits for more informed voters. Agranov, Eilat and Sonin (2021) studies the relationship between the size of an endogenously formed elite, the trust voters have in the elite's endorsement of a candidate, and inequality. Here I focus on a political agency setting with distributive politics, consider politicians with heterogeneous preferences, introduce heterogeneity in the level of information voters have and do not consider endogenous trust, endogenous information acquisition, heterogeneous preferences among voters, or the endogenous formation of an elite.…”