Observational evidence suggests that social trust and the closely related concept of social capital play a critical role in compliance with government policy, particularly in regards to public responsiveness to measures intended to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. We use a survey...

This paper studies the effect of two place-based policies implemented in Cali, Colombia on social capital and trust. We use the CaliBRANDO survey to account for institutional and interpersonal trust, matching neighborhood of residence and where policies are applied. We set up a...

Research on "trust" now forms a prominent part of the research agenda in history and the social sciences. Although this research has generated useful insights, the idea of trust has been used so widely and loosely that it risks creating more confusion than clarity. This essay argues that to the...

Based on official records from the former East German Ministry for State Security, we quantify the long-term costs of state surveillance on social capital and economic performance. Using county-level variation in the spy density in the 1980s, we exploit discontinuities at state borders to show...