… In a new paper, we provide the first evidence on the effects of epidemics on political trust. We use individual-level data on confidence in political institutions and leaders from the 2006-2018 Gallup World Polls (GWP), fielded in nearly 140 countries annually. Our data cover some 750,000 respondents from 142 countries. …
Building on previous work suggesting that attitudes and behaviour are durably moulded in what psychologists and sociologists refer to as the “impressionable” late-adolescent and early-adult years, we show that exposure to epidemics at this stage in the life course durably shapes confidence in political institutions and attitudes toward political leaders. CONT.
Cevat Giray Aksoy, Barry Eichengreen & Orkun Saka, LSE USAPP
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The good government years were from 1940 to 1979. This changed all attitudes. All of them.