Inequality and trust in Sweden : Some inequalities are more harmful than others

By Magnus Gustavsson, Henrik Jordahl. 2008

180 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present new evidence on the influence of income inequality on generalized trust. Using individual panel data from Swedish counties together with an instrumental variable strategy, we find that differences in disposable income, and especially differences among people in the bottom half of the income distribution, are associated with lower trust. The relationship between income inequality and trust is particularly strong for people with a strong aversion against income differentials. We also find that the proportion of people born in a foreign country is negatively associated with trust.

Subfields: Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6b410f4ca9eee326db80d4fc25d1ed9ec6549080

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In Safety Research

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

When Does Economic Growth Improve Life Satisfaction? Multilevel Analysis of the Roles of Social Trust and Income Inequality in 46 Countries, 1981–2012 (2017, background): “Indeed, empirical studies suggest that when economic growth is accompanied by increasing income inequality, social linkages and feelings of solidarity and cooperation weaken, leading to an erosion of both social capital and subjective well-being (Josten, 2004; Alesina and La Ferrara, 2006; Kawachi e”
Is the importance of religion in daily life related to social trust? Cross-country and cross-state comparisons (2011, background): “21 While Gustavsson and Jordahl (2008) find that the share of foreign-born persons in Swedish counties is related to lower trust, the vast majority of the present black population is born in the U.”
Trust, welfare states and income equality: Sorting out the causality (2014, background): “Another possible mechanism is that low income earners may have more to gain from defection when inequality is high, as noted by Gustavsson and Jordahl (2008).”