Inherent effects of corruption on the erosion of political trust in developing countries:Evidence from Ghana

A growing literature highlighting the inherent effects of corruption on the erosion of political trust has emerged recently, but few studies focus on Sub-Saharan African countries. The paper uses an identification strategy based on a control function approach, along with individual level data to disentangle the nexus between perceived corruption and political trust in Ghana. Results show that perceived corruption substantially erodes political trust, whilst political trust only slightly impacts people’s perception of corruption. In essence, perceived corruption propagates a climate of mistrust in Ghana. Moreover, heterogeneous effects on these relationships are observed across regions, ethnic groups, gender and education. For example, men tend to perceive the presidency office as corrupt whilst trusting the president, thereby repudiating the general view that individuals who trust more automatically perceive less corruption.