Trust, social protection, and compliance: Moral hazard in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: Political trust is an important predictor of compliance with government policies, especially in the face of natural disasters or public health emergencies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, multiple studies related political trust to increased compliance with mobility restrictions. Yet these findings come mostly from high-income countries where political trust and wealth correlate positively. In Latin America, both variables correlate negatively, allowing for better testing of competing explanations. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that in Latin America wealth and, counterintuitively, low political trust predict increased compliance. To understand mechanisms, we decompose political trust and wealth into underlying predictors (social protection, corruption, and ed

SUBMITTER: Bird MD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9760614 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature