Institutional Trust and Corruption: Evidence from Latin America

Abstract

During decades of political and social change, corruption has become a pervasive and habitual factor of Latin American governments. The literature of political economic of corruption largely debates about the negative impact that inefficient anti-corruption policies have on state accountability. Undoubtedly this work contributes to the literature by providing important supportive evidence on this matter. Using data from the Latinobarómetro collected between 2006 and 2010, this study explores the relationship between citizens’ perception of corruption and trust toward public institutions, more commonly called institutional trust. Empirical evidence suggests that citizens’ trust increases if they perceive improvements in reducing corruption. These results are robust also to the inclusion of several socio-economic covariates as well as when we replicate the analysis for each institutional trust item separately. Our analysis inevitably connects with the literature of quality of government institutions and makes of the Latin American context the new geopolitical ground for this complex debate.