题目：Regulation and Distrust

作者：Philippe Aghion, Yann Algan, Pierre Cahuc, Andrei Shleifer

文献出处：The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2010, 125(3): 1015–1049.

主讲人：张朝阳 博士

时间：2018年11月8日14：00-16：00

地点：浙江财经大学我院1号楼302室

主办单位：浙江财经大学现代公共经济学研究中心

内容摘要：In a cross section of countries, government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with measures of trust. In a simple model explaining this correlation, distrust creates public demand for regulation, whereas regulation in turn discourages formation of trust, leading to multiple equilibria. A key implication of the model is that individuals in low-trust countries want more government intervention even though they know the government is corrupt. This paper tests this and other implications of the model using country- and individual-level data on trust and beliefs about the role of government, as well as on changes in beliefs during the transition from socialism.

结合跨过数据，作者们发现政府管制与信任呈现负相关关系，为解释二者之间的这种关系，构建了一个理论模型。由于低信任会产生对管制的需求，而管制又能反向抑制信任的产生，模型存在两个均衡——高信任无管制、低信任有管制。在文章中，作者们利用国家与个人层面的数据检验了模型的结论，并展开了相关的讨论。这篇文章通过一个并不复杂的模型很好地刻画并解释了现实中政府管制与个体信任之间存在的交互关系，并从多个角度采用多种测度方式展开实证分析，其方法和思路均值得我们深入学习。