Семинар "Политическая экономика": Michael T. Dorsch (CEU) о влиянии исторических событий на нынешний уровень доверия к государственным институтам.

На семинаре "Политическая экономика" Michael T. Dorsch (CEU) рассказал о том, как влияет историческое правление Габсбургов на современные уровни общественного доверия.

Тема: History, Trust in Institutions, and Regulatory Compliance

Аннотация:

What are the historical determinants of current levels of trust in public institutions? Does historically rooted trust explain individuals' compliance with government regulations? To evaluate these questions, we examine the effect of historical Habsburg rule on contemporary levels of public trust and a variety of compliance outcomes. We have conducted online surveys in cities within Italy and Austria treated with the Habsburg rule for varying lengths of time. In Italy, we select cities without any Habsburg rule to compare with neighboring cities with some length of rule (50 to 150 years) or regions under a long reign (300 - 600 years). We use list-experiments (or the item-count technique) to elicit trust and compliance behavior, as well as self-reported measures of other individual-level covariates. As compliance outcomes, we study bribery, tax evasion, and COVID-19 related restrictions. For tax compliance, we introduce a novel behavioral choice in the survey -- signing up for free expert tax consultation vs. receiving a less valuable Amazon gift card -- that elicits revealed preference for tax compliance. As we have data only from the first round of surveys, we have only preliminary results to share. Our focus in the seminar will be on results that relate to income tax compliance.