Does generalized trust depend on income?

摘要

In a recent article, Ananyev and Guriev (2019) used Russian gross regional product (GRP) data to argue that income changes strongly affected generalized trust during 2008-9 crisis. I show that GRP changes were a poor proxy for regional household incomes during the crisis. Substituting household incomes for GRP eliminates all statistical significance of the relevant coefficients and in some specifications even changes the coefficient signs. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.