Why Trust Weighs More? Investigating the Endogenous Relationship Between Trust and Perceived Institutional Effectiveness

Abstract

This study investigates the intricate interplay between citizens’ trust in government institutions and their perceptions of institutional effectiveness. The two may have an endogenous relationship as they influence each other. Yet, since they stem from different sources and have distinct dynamics, their relationship may exhibit a directional bias in terms of causality: citizens’ trust may impact the perception of institutional effectiveness more than vice versa. As the survey results from Hong Kong suggest here, this may indicate that trust is not only performance-based but also character-based, with the latter lasting longer and exerting a greater impact on perceptions of institutional performance.