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Birds of a feather flock together: trust in government, political selection and electoral punishment

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  • Massimo Finocchiaro Castro

    (Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria
    University of York)

  • Calogero Guccio

    (University of Catania
    University of York)

Abstract

Although often at the heart of the public debate, the underlying determinants of political selection and voters’ punishment of corrupt politicians remain poorly investigated. This paper contributes to our understanding of those issues by showing that places, such as Italy, where social norms are weak and trust in government is low, also feature adverse political selection and low levels of electoral punishment of corrupt politicians. Our measure of trust in government is based on the occurrence of cheating by Italian schoolteachers. We show that untrustworthiness is strongly related to both the malfeasance of local representatives and to low levels of electoral punishment of them.

Suggested Citation

  • Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio, 2020. "Birds of a feather flock together: trust in government, political selection and electoral punishment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 263-287, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:184:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11127-019-00759-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-019-00759-4
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    2. Natalia Candelo & Angela C. M. Oliveira & Catherine Eckel, 2023. "Trust among the poor: African Americans trust their neighbors, but are less trusting of public officials," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(3), pages 427-452, September.
    3. Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio, 2021. "Does greater discretion improve the performance in the execution of public works? Evidence from the reform of discretionary thresholds in Italy," Working papers 108, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    4. Peer Henri Kieweg & Stefanie Schöberl & Gabriele Palozzi, 2021. "The Role of Communication In COVID-19 Crisis Management: Findings about Information Behavior of German and Italian Young People," International Journal of Business Research and Management (IJBRM), Computer Science Journals (CSC Journals), vol. 12(5), pages 263-288, October.
    5. Finocchiaro Castro ,Massimo & Guccio, Calogero, 2023. "New wine in old bottle: Exploring the Corruption-inefficiency nexus using endogenous stochastic frontier approach," EconStor Preprints 275730, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Oguzhan Dincer & Michael Johnston, 2020. "Legal corruption?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 219-233, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trust in government; Social capital; Legal corruption; Political corruption; Electoral punishment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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