Trust in State and Nonstate Actors: Evidence from Dispute Resolution in Pakistan
Name
707765.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.51 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6adf46ff8c474aca6714750be4752ecf
Author(s)
Acemoglu, K. Daron
Date Issued
July 2020
Journal
The Journal of Political Economy
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Citation
Acemoglu, Daron et al. “Trust in State and Nonstate Actors: Evidence from Dispute Resolution in Pakistan.” The Journal of Political Economy, 128, 8 (July 2020): 3090-3147 © 2020 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This paper investigates whether information about improved public services can help build trust in state institutions and move people away from nonstate actors. We find that (truthful) information about reduced delays in state courts in rural Pakistan leads to citizens reporting higher likelihood of using them and to greater allocations to the state in high-stakes lab games. We also find negative indirect effects on nonstate actors and show that these changes are a response to improved beliefs about state actors, which make individuals interact less with nonstate actors and, we argue, induce them to downgrade their beliefs about these actors.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1086/707765