metadata: authors: 0: author: Zovighian,Diane
1: author: Cloutier,Mathieu
2: author: Bove,Abel Paul Basile
count: Morocco
docna: 0: docna: What Drives Citizens’ Trust in State
            Institutions ? Large-Scale Survey Evidence on Process and
            Outcome-Based Trust in Morocco
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
theme: Public Administration,Participation and Civic Engagement,Human Development and Gender,Data Development and Capacity Building,Social Development and Protection,Disease Control,Pandemic Response,Public Sector Management,Data production, accessibility and use,Transparency, Accountability and Good Governance,Social Inclusion
abstracts: cdata!: What drives citizen&#x2019;s trust
            in state institutions? There are longstanding debates on the
            pathways towards institutional trust: is trust driven by
            citizen&#x2019;s perceptions of policy outcomes or by
            their perceptions of the integrity and credibility of policy
            processes? This paper investigates this question using data
            from a large-scale survey of 5,916 Moroccans and argues that
            process matters more than outcomes for trust-building. The
            paper first shows that Moroccans&#x2019; trust in
            institutions is strongly associated with positive
            evaluations of policy outcomes&#x2014;including
            satisfaction with the delivery of public goods and services
            and with government&#x2019;s economic performance. It
            then provides evidence that institutional trust is even more
            strongly and robustly associated with the quality of
            governance processes, and in particular with the perception
            that institutions function with integrity and make credible
            commitments. Going beyond policy variables, the paper also
            provides complementary evidence that institutional trust is
            contingent on individual-level social capital, including
            social trust, and socio-demographic factors. The conclusion
            briefly lays out the policy implications of this research
            and areas for future investigation.
display_title: What Drives Citizens’ Trust in State
            Institutions ? Large-Scale Survey Evidence on Process and
            Outcome-Based Trust in Morocco
listing_relative_url: /research/2024/05/34323127/drives-citizens’-trust-state-institutions-large-scale-survey-evidence-process-outcome-based-trust-morocco
topicv3: Public Service Delivery m1326771 728,Governance in Public Sector m1327255 831,Integrity and Anti-Corruption m1327483 313,Public Accounting System m1503529 3097
publishtoextweb_dt: 2024-05-22T00:00:00Z
dois: 10.1596/1813-9450-10783
origu: Off of Sr VP Dev Econ/Chief Econ (DECVP)
no_of_pages: 36
author_keys: 0: author_key: 1139783
1: author_key: 1594961
2: author_key: 1062727
model_extractions: Policy Research Working Paper 10783

# What Drives Citizens’ Trust in State Institutions?

Large-Scale Survey Evidence on Process and Outcome-Based Trust in Morocco _Diane Zovighian Mathieu Cloutier Abel Bove_ Governance Global Practice May 2024
Policy Research Working Paper 10783

# **Abstract**

What drives citizen’s trust in state institutions? There are longstanding debates on the pathways towards institutional trust: is trust driven by citizen’s perceptions of policy outcomes or by their perceptions of the integrity and credibility of policy processes? This paper investigates this question using data from a large-scale survey of 5,916 Moroccans and argues that process matters more than outcomes for trust-building. The paper first shows that Moroccans’ trust in institutions is strongly associated with positive evaluations of policy outcomes—including satisfaction with the delivery of public goods and services and with government’s economic performance. It then provides evidence that institutional trust is even more strongly and robustly associated with the quality of governance processes, and in particular with the perception that institutions function with integrity and make credible commitments. Going beyond policy variables, the paper also provides complementary evidence that institutional trust is contingent on individual-level social capital, including social trust, and socio-demographic factors. The conclusion briefly lays out the policy implications of this research and areas for future investigation.

This paper is a product of the Governance Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at diane.zovighian@sciencespo.fr, mcloutier1@worldbank.org, and above@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# What Drives Citizens’ Trust in State Institutions?

Large-Scale Survey Evidence on Process and Outcome-Based Trust in Morocco Diane Zovighian, Mathieu Cloutier and Abel Bove JEL Classification: D02, D72, D73, D78, O43, O55, P16 Keywords: Social Trust, Institutional Trust, Policy Performance, Service Delivery, Equity, Integrity, Transparency, Policy Credibility, Morocco, Middle East and North Africa.

> _⇤_ Diane Zovighian is a Consultant on Governance at the World Bank and Lecturer at Sciences Po (Paris), Mathieu Cloutier is a Senior Economist at the World Bank and Abel Bove is a Senior Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank. Any comments or suggestions can be sent to the corresponding authors at mcloutier1@worldbank.org and diane.zovighian@sciencespo.fr

> _†_ The authors would like to thank Jesko S. Hentschel and Jens K. Kristensen for their guidance, and Ali Bouabid and Anne-Lucie Lefebvre for their contributions to the design of the study. They would also like to thank Zeina Afif, Ali Bouabid, Sarah F. Cli↵e, Romain Ferrali, Johannes Hoogeveen, Elena Ianchovichina, Deborah Isser, Stuti Khemani, Gladys Lopez-Acevedo, Federica Marzo, Beatrice Noun, Gael Raballand, Francesca Recanatini, Abdoulaye Sy and Michael Woolcock for their feedback, comments and suggestions. The authors are also grateful to Amine Aboussalah for his research assistance on social media data analysis. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone.
# **1 Introduction**

Why do some economies grow while others stagnate or decline? Why do some countries have institutions that are better able to e↵ectively regulate social and economic relations? Why have some countries managed to better preserve their economies and save more lives during the COVID-19 crisis? There is a growing consensus that trust in state institutions is a central piece of many of these puzzles. Existing research has demonstrated a positive association between trust and a range of development indicators, including economic growth, social cohesion and well-being (Fukuyama 1995, Knack and Zac 2001, Algan and Cahuc 2013, Algan 2018, IADB 2022).

The instrumental role of institutional trust in development originates from citizens’ simple yet powerful belief that institutions - including state institutions - will act in a way that is consistent with their expectations of positive behavior (OECD 2017) and, therefore, that resources can be placed voluntarily at the disposal of the state and that this “act of trust will pay o↵” (Coleman 1990).<sup>1</sup> This belief, and the subsequent act of trust, ease social and economic exchanges. The development of institutions that are trusted (for e.g. to protect property rights or ensure contract enforcement) indeed reduce uncertainty in economic transactions and as such is a precondition to economic growth (North 1990).<sup>2</sup> Trust also facilitates collective action and increases citizens’ compliance with their government’s decisions. Research has shown that trust increases tax compliance (Dom et al. 2022, Prichard et al. 2019) as well as the ability of a political system to sustain policy reforms, notably by enhancing citizens’ support to the allocation of public resources to policy goals (Marien and Hooghe 2011, Chanley et al. 2000), and allowing governments to win citizens’ compliance with difficult policies, including with stringent health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic (Khemani 2020, Abi Rached and Diwan 2021, Devine et al 2021).

In that context, the cost of low social and institutional trust can be high for developing countries (Algan and Cahuc 2010).<sup>3</sup> Morocco is no exception - and the country’s New Development Model (2021) recognizes the central role of trust for development.<sup>4</sup> Previous research by Foa, Liverani and Chau↵our (2017) estimated that low levels of social trust (which, as we show below, is strongly correlated with institutional trust) created

> 1Coleman’s (1990) definition of trust states that “An individual trusts if he or she voluntary places resources at the disposal of another party without any legal commitment from the latter, but with the expectation that the act of trust will pay o↵”.

> 2Arrow (1972), cited by Algan (2018) puts it simply “Virtually every commercial transaction has within itself an element of trust, certainly any transaction conducted over a period of time. It can be plausibly argued that much of the economic backwardness in the world can be explained by the lack of mutual confidence”.

> 3The authors estimate, for example, that income per capita would have been 546 percent higher in Africa in 2000 (all else being equal) if the level of inherited trust had been the same as in Sweden.

> 4Government of Morocco. 2021. The New Development Model. Releasing Energy and Regaining Trust to Accelerate the March of Progress and Prosperity for All.

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substantial constraints to the country’s growth and that an increase of trust in Morocco could yield an economic dividend of about $7.4 billion over the course of a decade. This cost also has social and political aspects. While Morocco stands out in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for its relative stability, levels of institutional trust have remained around 40 percent (a median number for the MENA region and a globally low percentage) since the mid-2000s, with a sharp decline in 2018.<sup>5</sup> Morocco has witnessed a stream of social and political protests and upheavals since 2016. These episodes have ranged from geographically-localized protests in lagging regions to issue-based social mobilization by both low and middle classes. The COVID-19 pandemic also led to social unrest and protests including in the spring of 2021 when the government imposed a curfew during Ramadan and in late 2021 against the vaccination campaign.<sup>6</sup> ,<sup>7</sup> What, then, is the most e↵ective way to increase trust in institutions, and reap its developmental benefits? What are the drivers of institutional trust? In other words, what factors can drive individuals to update their belief about the trustworthiness of institutions? By presenting findings from a large-scale survey financed by the World Bank in Morocco in 2021, this paper contributes to a rich literature on the determinants of institutional trust.

Over the years, researchers have identified many correlates of trust and attempted to identify the extent to which they could be attributed a causal role in driving trustbuilding. One important correlate identified is the perceived or objective performance and quality of government to deliver public services (Keefer and Scartascini 2022 and Corbacho et al 2015) or to reduce economic inequality (Grimes 2017; Kettl 2017; Listhaug and Jacobsen 2017; Newton, Stolle, and Zmerli 2017). Many have also found strong negative correlation between trust and corruption (Braithwaite 1998; van der Meer 2010; van der Meer and Zmerli 2017). Additionally, the use of open government policies and initiatives, e-government, and social media in the resource management process have been shown to increase trust in institutions, albeit with some caveats (see Kumagai and Ilorio 2020 for a review of that specific branch of the literature).

The non-exhaustive list of potential drivers of trust described in the previous paragraph are often categorized as belonging to two important families of drivers of institutional

> 5Looking at the Arab Barometer waves, the percentages of people expressing having a great deal or quite a lot of trust in the government stands at 39 percent in 2006, then 42 percent in 2013, 43 percent in 2016, 29 percent in 2018 and 37 percent in 2022.

6https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-africa-health-north-africa-morocco86e49c437629db0a51d508e94da306e1 7https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/moroccos-vaccine-pass-stumbles-with-new-variantlooming-2021-12-07/.

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trust (see Kettl 2017,<sup>8</sup> Hakhverdian and Mayne 2012,<sup>9</sup> and Kumagai and Ilorio 2020): (i) outcome-based trust originating from repeated positive outcomes derived from public policy, and (ii) process-based trust originating from perceptions of a fair and transparent implementation and design process for public policy.

Outcome-based trust is understood as people’s trust in their governments “based on (past) performance and expectations.” (Kumagai and Ilori 2020); it stems from perceptions of the outcomes of public action, and the capacity of state institutions to deliver results – be they economic policy results or better public services. On the other hand, people’s engagement experience with the government and their perceptions that these interactions are ruled by a fair and transparent process can also influence the level of political trust. This is known as “process-based” trust and is determined by citizens’ satisfaction with the quality of public processes, including citizens’ perceptions of the transparency and credibility of data, information and policy decisions, as well as the level, depth, and quality of citizen engagement (e.g., engagement type, frequency, and responsiveness) in the government’s decision-making process, or the fairness of policymaking and service delivery processes.

Citizens’ satisfaction with the outcome and process of public action can undoubtedly diverge. Individuals can be dissatisfied with the outcomes of a given policy while being satisfied with the decision-making process – assuming, for example, that decisions were taken transparently or in a consultative manner – in which case, the quality of the process may allow government to earn legitimacy and the confidence of citizens. Conversely, citizens might be satisfied with the quantity or quality of a given public service, while being dissatisfied with the ways in which budget or policy decisions relating to that service were made.

Both process-based and outcomes-based trust have been studied in the experimental setting. One of the first examples of experiments to investigate trust involved the “investment” or “trust” games<sup>10</sup> based on a game theoretical approach (Berg, Dickhaut,and 8Kettl (2017) introduced the wholesale and retail dimensions for governments to earn citizens’ trust. He argued the wholesale level is for governments to earn trust through policy formulation — or in other words, at the macro level of government and citizen interactions — while the retail level relates to the governments’ ability to implement its policies at the micro-level, say through day-today interactions with citizens to deliver public services where governments could improve citizens’ experiences with them. Kettl (2017) also pointed out that transparency is a critical foundation for trust in government.

> 9They argue that people first assess institutions and government actors according to “the extent to which the democratic promise of political fairness and equality is made real by the rules, procedures, norms, and structures that guide and constrain the functioning of political institutions and the behavior of political actors” (p. 4). Second, they argue, citizen trust in institutions depends on an e↵ectiveness criterion.

> 10Subjects have two options in this game. One is to earn a guaranteed sum by avoiding interaction with other individuals. The other o↵ers the possibility of earning a significantly larger sum, but contingent on whether other subjects engage or not in opportunistic behavior. Trust matters because, although all are better o↵under cooperation, every participant has an

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McCabe, 1995). Since then, there has been a growing body of work using experimental methods to measure trust, beliefs, and norms in di↵erent settings (see, e.g., Dufwenbergand Gneezy 2000; Burks, Carpenter, and Verhoogen 2003; and Johnson and Mislin 2011). Acemoglu and co-authors (2020) showed in an experimental setting that (truthful) information about reduced delays in state courts in rural Pakistan increases trust. Some researchers are now using a mixed method by applying the traditional trust game to large samples of respondents online (Aruguete, Calvo et al., 2021; Bejarano, Busso and Scartascini, 2021). A study by Murtin et al. (2018), combining an experimental design and a large-scale survey, bridged the two approaches and showed that self-reported measures of trust in institutions were validated experimentally.

This paper provides empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that processes were more important factors of trust than outcomes in the case of Morocco during the period studied. Results show that positive perceptions of the quality of policy processes correlate with institutional trust with more statistical significance and larger coefficients, and that the relation is more robust than the relation between satisfaction with policy outcomes and institutional trust. This is not to say that outcomes do not matter as we also find that policy outcomes – including positive perceptions of the delivery of public goods and services – are positively associated with Moroccan citizens’ trust in institutions. For example, citizens who are satisfied with the Government of Morrocco’s (GoM) economic policies or with service delivery are more likely to report higher levels of trust in institutions. Yet, institutional trust is even more strongly associated with the quality of public policy and service delivery processes, and in particular with positive perceptions of public integrity and policy credibility. For example, citizens who perceive that the GoM manages public resources in a transparent manner or that policy announcements are e↵ectively followed by actions are substantially more likely to trust institutions.

Given the nature of our dataset, which only captures a cross-section of trust-related data in Morocco, and the absence of an experimental or quasi-experimental element, the results presented in this paper have a limited capacity to identify a causal relation. To address this limitation to the maximum of our capability, we performed a range of robustness checks, checking our results against a large number of controls and alternative specifications. The findings also build on a growing body of evidence of recent policy research which argues that transparency, integrity and credibility are core drivers of trust (IADB 2022, Brezzi et al. 2021, Wang and Guan (2022), and Murtin et al 2018).

While our core finding relates to the pivotal role of policy performance and processes, our results also speak to the literature on individual-level determinants of trust, including social capital and socio-demographic characteristics. Studies have emphasized the importance of social and economic capital in explaining levels of institutional trust. Generalized social trust – the trust in individuals beyond one’s narrow community, embracing individuals for whom one has little prior information or moral claim – has been incentive to act opportunistically.

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argued to positively influence institutional trust. Individuals with high levels of generalized social trust are, among other things, less likely to free ride on others (Tabellini 2010) and more likely to respect other members of their community and engage in civic activities, which nurture political trust and political participation (Almond and Verba 1963, Putnam 2000). Other scholars have emphasized the importance of economic capital, including individual economic characteristics: Murtin et al. (2018) shows for example that perceptions of social mobility and financial security are positively correlated with trust in government.

More generally, research has shown that demographic and socio-economic factors, including gender, age, income and education, also matter for trust in government – and can combine with perceptions of policy outcomes and processes to influence trust (Brezzi et al. 2021).

Our results provide empirical evidence on these questions and show that institutional trust is contingent on individual-level social capital and socio-demographic variables. Specifically, we find that individuals with lower levels of social trust, women, individuals living in rural areas, middle class individuals and youth are less likely to express trust in national institutions.

In the rest of the paper, we present and discuss our research and findings in more detail. In section 2, we discuss the context in which the survey took place, we describe the survey methodology and present characteristics and summary statistics of the sample. In section 3, we present our core empirical findings and the robustness checks we performed. In section 4 we provide some supplementary results. Finally, in section 5, we highlight the importance and implications of those findings for policymakers as well as future areas of research.

# **2 Survey Methodology and Data Description**

## **2.1 Context**

Morocco stands out in the Middle East and North Africa region for its relative social and political stability, and its capacity to reform. While the 2008/09 global economic crisis and the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings challenged the country’s stability, the Moroccan political system demonstrated its relative resilience, cohesion, and willingness to respond to its citizens, in contrast to other countries in the region that witnessed regime change, protracted political transitions and wars. The Moroccan political system responded to the wave of protests that spread through the country with a mix of redistributive policies and institutional reforms.

However, despite substantial growth, the country is constrained by a lack of inclusive development and the persistence of socio-economic vulnerability: 27.5 percent of the population remains at risk of falling into poverty<sup>11</sup> ; job creation is slow, and unemploy-

> 11Macro Poverty Outlook, MENA region, October 2020. World Bank.

6
ment high, particularly among youth and women; and there is room to improve regional and social gaps in public services delivery quality and access (e.g. urban-rural, lagging regions, rich vs. middle class and poor). Evidence shows that inequalities increased in 2021<sup>12</sup> and Morocco boasts one of the highest Gini-coefficients in the entire North African region, ahead of countries such as Tunisia and Egypt<sup>13</sup> . Feelings of relative deprivation and social exclusion are particularly strong in lagging regions, which historically stand at the periphery of the Kingdom’s centers of power and economic activity<sup>14</sup> .

Such developments led King Mohamed VI to task a commission of experts and representatives from all parts of Moroccan society to draft a “New Development Model” in 2019. The report, completed and presented to the King in 2021, holds that “despite providing encouraging answers to popular and political expectations in the wake of the 2011 MENA region upheavals and in the 2008 financial crisis, a crisis of trust gradually took hold of the country, fueled by the slowing economic growth and growing social inequalities.”

# **2.2 Survey Methodology**

The analysis presented in this paper is based on an original phone survey of 5,916 adult Moroccans conducted in May and June 2021. Given the COVID-19-linked guidance to limit contacts and the social distancing measures that were in place at the time the survey, the survey methodology consisted of computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The survey was translated in Darija (the Moroccan Arabic dialect) and Amazigh and piloted in May 2021 to validate the clarity and the flow of the questionnaire. The quality review of the dataset was done in three ways. First, the survey firm’s software identified outliers in terms of length taken to answer each question as well as suspicious patterns in the answers. Second, the firm called back 2,416 respondents to confirm that they had participated in the survey. Finally, an in-depth call back review of 229 surveys stratified by interviewer was done in close collaboration with the research team to validate the e↵ort of each interviewer.

The survey included 47 questions, with some questions containing multiple sub-questions. The length of the interview meant that it was necessary to provide a monetary incentive to increase the proportion of respondents who finished the survey. This was done through a mobile credit transferred directly to the phone of the participant.

The survey questions covered di↵erent dimensions of social and institutional trust, as well as many possible drivers and correlates of trust. The survey also captured geographic and socio-demographic information of respondents to assess how key variables varied at the 12According to the World Inequality Database (https://wid.world/country/morocco/), the top 10 percent’s share of the total wealth increased from 62.9 percent in 2020 to 63.2 percent in 2021. 13AUC/OECD. 2018. Africa’s Development Dynamics 2018: Growth, Jobs and Inequalities, OECD Publishing, Paris/AUC, Addis Ababa, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264302501-en.

> 14Clementi, Fabio et al. Polarization and Its Discontents: Morocco before and after the Arab Spring. Policy Research Working Paper 9049. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group.

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subnational level and across groups. The questions were grouped into several modules: dimensions of trust (which institutions or entities are being trusted), performance of the public sector, public communications and transparency, corruption and integrity, behaviors linked to trust, impact of COVID-19, and socio-demographic questions.

# **2.3 Sample Description**

Many existing surveys covering Morocco have previously measured some aspect of trust, such as the Arab Barometer, the Afro-Barometer, the Gallup World Poll, and the Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis (MIPA) surveys. An important added value of our survey, compared to existing opinion surveys, is the size of its sample which allows for sub-national inference. The international and regional instruments used to assess trust have shortcomings linked to their coverage which is often uneven both across countries and over time. Most of the other survey data come from a small sample (i.e., 1,000 to 1,500 respondents per country), precluding intra-country analysis and sometimes failing to be representative of the whole population.

The 5,916 respondents selected created a nationally representative sample of the population, age 18 and above. They were randomly selected using the quota method (age, gender, socio-professional category), following a stratification by region.<sup>15</sup> This allowed for each region, age, gender, and income groups to contain a relatively high level of respondents compared to other surveys described above. Selected sample statistics can be found in Table 1.<sup>16</sup> In addition, the sampling strategy ensured representativity between urban and rural populations. According to the Haut Commissariat au Plan’s 2014 population census, 41.12 percent of the population was rural. In the sample, 41.5 percent classified as rural. This addresses a common criticism of other widely used surveys in the region which disproportionately represent urban populations.

# **2.4 Timing of the Survey**

The survey took place at a specific time of the COVID-19 crisis, and it is important to contextualize this period and to verify whether our data was not overly impacted by events that took place around the time of the survey. As mentioned above, the survey was implemented during the months of June and July 2021 close to the timing of Wave 6 of the Arab Barometer. As shown in Figure 1 using Arab Barometer data, trust in the government benefitted from an initial increase in third quarter of 2020 following the decrease in 2018 mentioned in the introduction. By 2021, when the study’s survey took place, trust was back to levels more in line with the historical average. The increase 15Regions covered are Oriental, Fes-Meknes, Rabat-Sale-Kenitra, Beni Mellal-Khenifra, Grand Casablanca-Settat, Marrakech-Safi, Draa-Tafilalet, and Souss-Massa.

> 16To stratify the sample and determine the weights for each group, the sampling methodology used the HCP’s latest available population census dating from 2014.

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of trust across institutions, we also test for the robustness of our results by running regressions with di↵erent operationalization of the dependent variable, including by using trust in legislative institutions as well as an index of trust in representative institutions (combining executive and legislative).

# **3.3 Independent Variables**

Xoutcomes is a vector of independent variables that operationalize the ‘outcome pathway’ to institutional trust. These variables include measures of satisfaction with policy outcomes, including three measures of satisfaction with public service delivery (health, education, and water and sanitation), a measure of satisfaction with security and order, as well as two measures of satisfaction with government’s economic performance (in terms of job creation and poverty reduction). Given the high correlation of some of these measures we build two thematic indices combining relevant indicators. The first index is the index of satisfaction with economic performance, which averages two variables: satisfaction with the improvement of the poor’s living conditions and satisfaction with job creation; the second index is the index of satisfaction with social services which also averages two variables: satisfaction with health services and satisfaction with education services.

Xprocess is a vector of independent variables that operationalize the ‘process pathway’ to institutional trust. These variables include measures of public integrity, equity of treatment by the public administration, and policy credibility. Measures of public integrity include corruption perceptions, bribe incidence, satisfaction with anti-corruption measures and transparency of public resource management; given that they are highly correlated, we combine them in an integrity perceptions index which averages four variables that measure, respectively, perceptions of the frequency of corruption; perceptions that bribes, gifts or favors need to be made to get a better treatment by the public administration; satisfaction with the fight against corruption; and confidence in the government’s management of public funds.

All the independent variables of this study are operationalized as categorical variables organized on a scale of 1 to 4.

The phrasing of the survey questions for each variable is spelled out in Table 2.

Xcontrols corresponds to a vector of geographic and socio-demographic controls, including region, urban/rural location, age, marital status, number of household members, income level, education level, and employment status.

To account for potential correlations in error terms between individual observations belonging to the same region, all estimations have standard errors clustered at the region level.

Table 3 presents the summary statistics of the dependent and independent variables.

the army; 5 : the police”.

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Table 2: Description of the model’s variables

|**Variable**|**Question**|**Coding**|
|---|---|---|
|**Variables**|**measuring satisfaction with performance/outcomes (Hypothesis 1)**||
||To what extent are you satisfed with the government’s response to the following demands<br>/concerns of Moroccan citizens (not at all, not very much, quite, very) :||
|**Satisfaction with security services**|- Security and order?|1-4 (not at all-very)|
|**Satisfaction with social services (index)**||1-4 (not at all-very)|
|- Satisfaction with education services<br>- Satisfaction with health services|- Management of public primary schools, middle schools and high schools?<br>- Management of public hospitals, health centres and dispensaries?||
|**Satisfaction with water and sanitation**|- Public provision of water and sanitation services?||
|**Satisfaction with economic performance (index)**||1-4 (not at all-very)|
|- Satisfaction with poverty reduction<br>- Satisfaction with job creation|- Improvement of the living conditions of the poorest?<br>- Creation of job opportunities?||
|**Va**|**riables measuring satisfaction with processes (Hypothesis 2)**||
|**Perceptions of public integrity (index)**||1-4|
|- Transparency of public revenue management<br>- Satisfaction with anti-corruption fght<br>- Corruption perceptions<br>- Bribery incidence|To what extent do you believe that the government manages public resources in a transparent<br>and trustworthy manner?<br>To what extent are you satisfed with the government’s e↵orts to fght corruption?<br>(not at all, not very much, quite, very)?<br>From your point of view, is corruption a practice that is very frequent, quite frequent,<br>not very frequent or not frequent at all in Morocco?<br>How often is it necessary to pay a bribe, make a favor or give a gift to get better<br>services from the public administration?<br>(very often, quite often, rarely, never)|1-4 (not at all-very)<br>1-4 (not at all-very)<br>1-4 (very - not all frequent)<br>1-4 (often-never)|
|**Policy credibility**|Do you think that public policy announcements are never, sometimes, often,<br>or always followed by actions?|1-4 (never-always)|
||In the last three years, at what frequency have you had the feeling of being treated||
|**Equity of treatment by the public administration**|inequitably by the public administration<br>(never, sometimes, often, always)|1-4 (never-always)|

Annex 1 provides more detailed descriptive statistics for all key variables. Descriptive statistics show that the country’s reformist drive in the post-Arab Spring has not yet fully delivered on citizens’ expectations with regards to policy performance. Satisfaction with economic performance and the delivery of social services is relatively low: 27 percent of respondents are quite or very satisfied with the government’s economic performance with regards to job creation or poverty reduction; and 30 percent of the population is quite or very satisfied with the management of public health and 35 percent with that of public education. Perceptions of public integrity, equity and policy credibility are also poor. For example, corruption and lack of transparency in the management of public resources remain core concerns of Moroccan citizens: 62 percent of respondents perceive that the management of public resources is not trustworthy, and only a third of the population (33 percent) is satisfied with Government of Morocco’s e↵orts to fight corruption. In addition, the lack of credibility of official policy statements is a salient issue. Only 21 percent of respondents think that policy announcements are often or always followed by actions. Finally, feelings of inequity also mar state-citizen relations: 42 percent of respondents report having been treated inequitably by the public administration.

# **3.4 Results**

Table 4 reports the results of an ordered logit regression of trust in the executive (the dependent variable in our model (1)) on the above-mentioned independent variables. The outcome-based variables include satisfaction with security services, satisfaction with health and education services, and satisfaction with government’s economic performance (both in terms of job creation and poverty reduction). The process-based variables include perceptions of the integrity of public institutions (including corruption perceptions, bribery incidence, and perceptions of transparency in resource management), of policy 13
Table 3: Summary statistics

|**Variable**|**Mean**|**Std. Dev.**|**Min.**|**Max.**|**N**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**_Dependent variable: institutional trust_**||||||
|Trust in government (main)|2.39|1.049|1|4|5916|
|Trust in legislative institutions|2.107|1.062|1|4|5916|
|**_Independent variables_**||||||
|Satisfaction with security services|2.591|1.153|1|4|5916|
|Satisfaction with social services (index)|1.946|0.988|1|4|5916|
|Satisfaction with water and sanitation|2.356|1.166|1|4|5916|
|Satisfaction with economic performance (index)|1.841|0.97|1|4|5916|
|Integrity perceptions (index)|1.964|0.658|1|4|5916|
|Perceptions of equitable treatment|2.811|1.113|1|4|5916|
|Policy credibility|1.838|0.894|1|4|5916|

credibility and of equitable treatment by the public administration. The estimations control for region, urban/rural location, age, marital status, number of household members, income level, education level, and employment status.

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Table 4: Correlates of trust (ordered logit model)

||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Institutional|Institutional|Institutional|Institutional|Institutional|Institutional|Institutional|Institutional|
||trust|trust|trust|trust|trust|trust|trust|trust|
|Satisfaction with|0.681***|||||||0.247***|
|security services|(0.0613)|||||||(0.0526)|
|Satisfaction with||1.003***||||||0.249***|
|social services||(0.0760)||||||(0.0854)|
|Satisfaction with|||0.740***|||||0.269***|
|water and sanitation|||(0.0399)|||||(0.0542)|
|Satisfaction with||||0.938***||||0.167**|
|economic performance (Index)||||(0.0788)||||(0.0709)|
|Integrity perceptions|||||1.476***|||0.638***|
|(Index)|||||(0.103)|||(0.108)|
|Equitable treatment||||||0.164***||0.126***|
|by the administration||||||(0.0417)||(0.0313)|
|Policy credibility|||||||0.698***<br>(0.100)|0.348***<br>(0.0584)|
|Region|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Urban/rural|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Gender|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Income|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Marital status|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|No. of HH members|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Income|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Education|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Employment status|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
|Observations|5,916|5,916|5,916|5,916|5,916|5,916|5,916|5,916|
|||Standard er<br>**|rors clustered <br>* p_<_0.01, ** p|by region in par<br>_<_0.05, * p_<_0.1|entheses||||
|||Data sourc|e: World Bank|survey on trust|(2021)||||

The results presented in Table 4 suggest that institutional trust in Morocco is tied to positive perceptions of both policy outcomes and processes. All regression coefficients reported in Table 4 are positive and statistically significant at the 0.01 level (except for economic performance at the 0.05 level). These positive coefficients indicate a positive relation between institutional trust and the di↵erent independent variables tested. They show that as perceptions of government performance, integrity or equity improve, trust in institutions also increases.

The consistently larger coefficients strongly suggest the larger e↵ects of the process-based variables. Specifically, regression results show that:

- Integrity appears to play a particularly significant role in feeding trust in institutions.

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- Policy credibility is also a strong lever of institutional trust.

- Equity matters: perceptions that the public administration treats citizens equitably feed trust in institutions.

- Satisfaction with public service delivery and economic performance are also trust generators – though, interestingly, the coefficient for economic performance is smaller than for other dimensions of public action.

The trust dividend associated with citizens’ positive perceptions of public action (both outcomes and process) is large. In practice, as illustrated by Figures 4 and 5, citizens’ positive perception of public action is associated with an increase in the probability of trusting institutions; this increase ranges from 5.4 to 43.6 percentage point for di↵erent dimensions of public actions.<sup>18</sup> Figure 4 reports the predicted probabilities of reporting trust in government for respondents with di↵erent levels of satisfaction with public policy performance, including the provision of social services (health and education) in the left quadrant and performance of economic policy (which includes job creation and poverty reduction) in the right quadrant. Figure 5 reports levels of institutional trust for individuals with di↵erent levels of satisfaction with the quality of policy and service delivery processes, including with regards to integrity, credibility and equity.

Satisfaction with government performance (outcome) is systematically associated with higher levels of institutional trust. First, as shown in Figure 4, satisfaction with public service delivery has a multiplier e↵ect on institutional trust: individuals very satisfied with social services are more likely to report trust in executive institutions than those who are not satisfied at all, by up 17 percentage points (i.e. 49.0 percent of individuals who are not satisfied at all with social services report trusting executive institutions compared to 66.0 percent of individuals who are very satisfied with these services). Second, satisfaction with the government’s economic performance is also positively associated with institutional trust: individuals who are satisfied with the government’s economic policies, including in terms of poverty reduction and job creation, are more likely to report trusting executive institutions by 5.4 percentage points (53.0 percent to 58.4 percent).

> 18All the estimated predictions are derived from a logit model regressing trust on all drivers and controlling for relevant geographic and socio-demographic variables. All other predictors are held at their mean.

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Figure 4: Trust dividends of better government performance <!-- Start of picture text --> Satisfaction with social services and institutional trust Satisfaction with economic performance and institutional trust<br>1 - Not at all 2 3 4 - Very 1 - Not at all 2 3 4 - Very<br>Satisfaction with social services (index) Satisfaction with economic performance (index)<br>(a) Social services (b) Economic performance<br>80 65<br>70<br>60<br>60<br>55<br>Probability of trust (%) Probability of trust (%)<br>50<br>40 50<br><!-- End of picture text --> Data source: World Bank survey on trust (2021). Note: the estimated predictions are derived from a logit model regressing trust in the executive (coded as a binary variable) on the range of independent variables presented in our model and controlling for relevant geographic and socio-demographic variables.

Satisfaction with the quality of public processes – and in particular with public integrity and policy credibility – is associated with a higher trust dividend than satisfaction with policy outcomes. As shown in Figure 5, integrity and credibility matter substantially for institutional trust – arguably more than government performance. Public integrity has a large positive pay-o↵: individuals who have a very positive perception of public integrity are 43.6 percentage points more likely to trust the government than individuals who have very negative perceptions (respectively 82.3 percent vs 38.7 percent report trusting government). Individuals who believe that policy announcements are often or always followed by actions are more likely to trust legislative and executive institutions by 12.5 to 18.4 percentage points, compared to those who do not believe in the credibility of policy announcements (67.6 percent of those who think that announcement are always followed by actions trust executive institutions, compared to 55.6 percent of those who think it is often the case and 49.2 percent, of those who think it is never the case). In addition, equitable treatment by the public administration comes out as a critical driver of trust in Morocco: individuals who perceive to have always been treated equitably by the public administration are more likely to trust institutions by 8.4 percentage points compared to those who perceive to have been treated inequitably (respectively 57.6 and 49.4 percent report trusting executive institutions).

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Figure 5: Trust dividends of integrity, credibility and equity <!-- Start of picture text --> Integrity and institutional trust Policy credibility and institutional trust<br>1 - Low 2 3 4 - High Never Sometimes Often Always<br>Perceptions of public integrity (index) Frequency at which policy announcements are followed by actions<br>(a) Integrity (b) Credibility<br>Equity and institutional trust<br>Often Sometimes Rarely Never<br>Inequitable treatment by the public administration<br>(c) Equity<br>100<br>70<br>80 65<br>60<br>60<br>55<br>Probability of trust (%) Probability of trust (%)<br>40<br>50<br>20 45<br>60<br>55<br>50<br>Probability of trust (%)<br>45<br><!-- End of picture text --> Data source: World Bank survey on trust (2021). Note: the estimated predictions are derived from a logit model regressing trust in the executive (coded as a binary variable) on the range of independent variables presented in our model and controlling for relevant geographic and socio-demographic variables.

# **3.5 Robustness Checks**

The previous results are robust to various model specifications, including operationalizing the dependent variable as legislative institutions; or an index of representative institutions (combining executive and legislative). They are also robust to the inclusion of additional controls, including a control for individuals’ intrinsic positive attitude. Robustness checks are presented in the tables below.

Table 5 shows the results of di↵erent model specifications of an ordered logit regression of institutional trust on relevant drivers, and reveals that the regression coefficients are broadly similar whether the dependent variable is defined as trust in the executive 18
(column 1), in the legislative (column 2) or an index of both (column 3). One of the main di↵erences is that policy credibility is more strongly associated with trust in the executive than in the legislative, possibly reflecting the stronger attribution of policy responsibility to the executive.

Table 5: Correlates of trust (ordered logit model): Alternative dependent variables

||(1)<br>Trust in the executive|(2)<br>Trust in the legislative<br>Trust in re|(3)<br>presentative institutions (index)|
|---|---|---|---|
|Satisfaction with|0.247***|0.250***|0.255***|
|security services|(0.0526)|(0.0513)|(0.0529)|
|Satisfaction with|0.249***|0.304***|0.295***|
|social services|(0.0854)|(0.0625)|(0.0726)|
|Satisfaction with|0.269***|0.284***|0.266***|
|water and sanitation|(0.0542)|(0.0540)|(0.0478)|
|Satisfaction with|0.167**|0.171***|0.184***|
|economic performance (Index)|(0.0709)|(0.0619)|(0.0629)|
|Integrity perceptions|0.638***|0.580***|0.600***|
|(Index)|(0.108)|(0.102)|(0.105)|
|Equitable treatment|0.126***|0.137***|0.132***|
|by the administration|(0.0313)|(0.0414)|(0.0333)|
|Policy credibility|0.348***|0.270***|0.314***|
||(0.0584)|(0.0744)|(0.0671)|
|Region|X|X|X|
|Urban/rural|X|X|X|
|Gender|X|X|X|
|Income|X|X|X|
|Marital status|X|X|X|
|No. of HH members|X|X|X|
|Income<br>X|X|X|X|
|Education<br>X|X|X|X|
|Employment status|X|X|X|
|Observations|5,916|5,916|5,916|
||Standard errors cl<br>*** p_<_0.|ustered by region in parentheses<br>01, ** p_<_0.05, * p_<_0.1||
||Data source: Wor|ld Bank survey on trust (2021)||

Table 6 shows the results of our main model with an additional control for individual positive self-assessment in column 2. The variable “positive perceptions of individual situation” corresponds to a self-assessment of individual’s living conditions (on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 are the worst possible conditions and 10 the best). The dependent variable “institutional trust” refers to trust in the executive. This control variable helps 19
account for the potential intervening e↵ect of individual-level optimism or general state of mind on the day of the interview, as these could theoretically bias perceptions of public policy or directly a↵ect individuals’ propensity to trust, and therefore interfere with our results. Results are robust to the inclusion of this additional control and show that satisfaction with policy outcomes and processes is tied to individuals’ trust in institutions, independent of their perception of their own situation.

Table 6: Correlates of trust (ordered logit model): controlling for optimism bias

||(1)|(2)|
|---|---|---|
||Institutional|Institutional|
||trust|trust|
|Satisfaction with|0.247***|0.246***|
|security services|(0.0526)|(0.0522)|
|Satisfaction with|0.249***|0.245***|
|social services|(0.0854)|(0.0871)|
|Satisfaction with|0.269***|0.268***|
|water and sanitation|(0.0542)|(0.0534)|
|Satisfaction with|0.167**|0.166**|
|economic performance (Index)|(0.0709)|(0.0708)|
|Integrity perceptions|0.638***|0.635***|
|(Index)|(0.108)|(0.106)|
|Equity perceptions|0.126***|0.122***|
||(0.0313)|(0.0302)|
|Policy credibility|0.348***|0.346***|
||(0.0584)|(0.0585)|
|Positive perceptions||0.0338|
|of individual situation||(0.0290)|
|Region|X|X|
|Urban/rural|X|X|
|Gender|X|X|
|Income|X|X|
|Marital status|X|X|
|No. of HH members|X|X|
|Income|X|X|
|Education|X|X|
|Employment status|X|X|
|Observations|5,916|5,916|

Standard errors clustered by region in parentheses *** p _<_ 0.01, ** p _<_ 0.05, * p _<_ 0.1 Data source: World Bank survey on trust (2021) 20
# **4 Social Capital, Socio-Demographics and Trust**

While this paper focuses on institutional trust, the survey also contained variables related to social trust. In the literature, the concept of social trust is often closely linked to the concept of social capital popularized by Putnam. Social trust represents trust between individuals within society, across a range of social ties. Social trust can be measured by asking respondents to assess their degree of trust to a generalized ‘other” (radius of trust), or to a list of di↵erent categories of individuals, starting from those who are close (e.g. friends and family) and extending to those who are more distant (e.g. people met for the first time, foreigners).<sup>19</sup> In this section, we explore the interaction between social trust and institutional trust.

We estimate the relation between institutional trust and social trust, as well as other socio-demographics, using the following model: Controls include a range of socio-demographic variables including: gender, urban/rural location, age, education, and income.

Levels of social trust in Morocco appear to be quite low. The survey data indicates that only 56 percent of respondents think that Moroccans trust each other. It also shows that interpersonal trust in Morocco is disproportionately geared toward in-groups, such as family, friend, and neighbors, rather than toward more distant groups such as individuals from a di↵erent religion, locality or nationality. Specifically, 94 percent report having high or very high levels of trust in their family; compared to 63 percent who report high or very high trust levels for friends, 63 percent for neighbors, 60 percent for work colleagues, and as low as 28 percent for people of other locality or nationality.<sup>20</sup> This echoes a previous World Bank study that found that “while low trust in outgroups is a

> 19Generalized social trust is measured in standard survey items by simply asking whether respondents feel that “in general, people can be trusted” or whether ‘you can’t be too careful” whom you trust. This measure of interpersonal trust fails to di↵erentiate between di↵erent types of social ties. In contrast, the notion of a radius of trust explores particularized trust, this is the trust that individuals have across a range of social ties. In surveys, the radius of trust battery questions ask respondents to assess their degree of trust not to a generalized “others”, but to a list of di↵erent categories of individuals, starting from those that are close, such as neighbors, friends and family, and extending to those that are more distant, such as for example people met for the first time or foreigners. The latter approach, labeled “radius of trust”, thus helps assess not only the degree of trust but also the extent to which individuals are willing to extend their trust beyond their narrow community, to embrace individuals on whom they have little prior information or moral claim.

> 20These figures are consistent with the survey estimates of the Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis, which has tracked social trust in its three publications, see MIPA 2020a, MIPA 2021, MIPA 2022. In 2020, MIPA found that family is the most trusted social institution. The Moroccans surveyed feel that family as well as close friends are the most trustworthy people within their entourage: 95.2 % of Moroccans surveyed saying they trust family while 42.9 % of

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syndrome among both lower middle and upper middle-income countries, it is particularly extreme in the case of Morocco.” (Foa, Liverani and Chau↵our 2017). It is noteworthy that these patterns of interpersonal trust appear to be a characteristic shared with other MENA countries.

As shown in Table 7, there is a strong correlation between social and institutional trust. Among individuals who strongly believe that Moroccans tend to trust each other, 66.5 percent also report trusting political institutions, compared to 41.0 percent of those who believe that Moroccans do not trust each other at all – a gap of over 25 percentagepoint. One explanation for that correlation is that interpersonal trust beyond in-group ties creates an environment conducive to the establishment of the rule of law and thus the building of trust in political institutions.

Table 7: Social and institutional trust (ordered logit model)

||(1)|(2)|
|---|---|---|
||Institutional|Institutional|
||trust|trust|
|Interpersonal trust|0.383***|0.375***|
||(0.0483)|(0.0495)|
|Region||X|
|Urban/rural||X|
|Gender||X|
|Income||X|
|Marital status||X|
|No. of HH members||X|
|Income||X|
|Education||X|
|Employment status||X|
|Constant|-0.793***|-0.233|
||(0.156)|(0.426)|
|Observations|5,916|5,913|

Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p _<_ 0.01, ** p _<_ 0.05, * p _<_ 0.1 Data source: World Bank survey on trust (2021) Socio-demographics also matter for trust. Figure 6 plots the coefficients of an ordered logit regression of trust in government on relevant geographic and socio-demographic variables. The coefficients show the direction and strength of the correlation between respondents said they do not trust other Moroccans. The least trusted part of society is strangers or people whom they have met the first time: only 19.4 % of respondents said they trust people they have met for the first time. These numbers were consistent with those observed in 2021 and in 2022.

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di↵erent variables and the level of institutional trust. A positive coefficient (represented at the right of the red line) indicates a positive correlation.

Figure 6: Trust and socio-demographic characteristics: Coefficient plot <!-- Start of picture text --> Geographic and sociodemographic correlates of trust in government<br>Coefficient plot (ordered logit model)<br>Rural<br>Female<br>20 - 24 yo<br>25 - 30 yo<br>31 - 34 yo<br>35 - 40 yo<br>41 - 44 yo<br>45 - 50 yo<br>51 - 54 yo<br>55 - 60 yo<br>61 - 65 yo<br>over 65<br>1500 - 2999 Dhs<br>3000 - 7000 Dhs<br>7001 - 12000 Dhs<br>12001 - 25000 Dhs<br>Over 25000 Dhs<br>University diploma<br>Professional training<br>No diploma<br>-.5 0 .5 1 1.5<br><!-- End of picture text --> Data source: World Bank survey on trust (2021) This graph shows that institutional trust is tied to individual-level socio-demographic determinants, including gender, age and income. First, gender and trust are closely related. Men have considerably higher levels of institutional trust than women (respectively 62 and 48 percent report trusting executive institutions). This is congruent with Moroccan women’s lower levels of civic engagement and political participation and could be a reflection of more systemic patterns of social and political exclusion. Second, there is a positive linear relation between age and institutional trust. Levels of institutional trust increase with age, with about 49.5 percent 18-35-year-old reporting trust in executive institutions, compared to an average of 60 percent of individuals above 35 years old. This is consistent with the evidence that youth are more likely to participate in protests, vote less and emigrate more.

Finally, there is a U-shape relation between income and institutional trust: low- and high-income groups have higher trust levels than medium-income groups. Levels of institutional trust are disproportionately higher among the highest income group, with 81 percent of individuals earning above 25,000 dirhams per month reporting trust in executive institutions. Levels of institutional trust among individuals earning less than 3,000 dirhams per month reach up to 60 percent. Institutional trust plunges among individuals in the median income group (3,000-7,000 dirhams), with only 45 percent 23
of individuals in this group reporting trust in executive institutions.<sup>21</sup> In addition, institutional trust is slightly higher in rural areas than in urban areas, with respectively 58 and 54 percent of the population reporting trust in government.

These socio-demographic factors have a cumulative impact: our statistical model approximates that a high-income male age 51-54 has an 81 percent probability of trusting the government, compared to 46 percent for a low-income female age 20-24.

# **5 Conclusion**

This paper shows, using a large-scale survey on trust in Morocco, that positive perceptions of policy outcomes and positive perceptions of policy processes are both associated with trust in institutions but that the e↵ect of process-based drivers appears to be greater. Policy outcomes indeed matter, as positive perceptions of the delivery of public goods and services are positively associated with Moroccan citizens’ trust in institutions; yet, we find that the relation between trust and process-based drivers such as policy credibility and public integrity is stronger.

This paper also contributes to the broader understanding of institutional trust by documenting the substantial variation in trust over individual-level demographic and socioeconomic factors. Data analysis provides empirical insights on these questions and shows that institutional trust is contingent on individual-level social capital and characteristics. Specifically, the paper finds that individuals with lower levels of social trust, women, individuals living in rural areas, middle class individuals and youth are less likely to express trust in national institutions.

Some of the paper’s findings related to perceptions of public action or socio-demographic factors and institutional trust are surprising and could warrant further research. For example, findings show that trust in institutions is not correlated in a linear way with measures of income. Institutional trust according to households’ income level follow a U shape, where households with the lowest income and the highest income express the highest levels of trust in institutions. The reason for this non-linearity is not instantly clear. Also, it appears that improved access to services sometimes generates a lower trust dividend than could be expected. Trust in government is indeed below the levels that could be expected given the objective improvements in infrastructures and access to services over the past two decades.

Additional data collection and experimental studies could help further understand the drivers of trust in public institutions and address concerns related to endogeneity and reverse causality. For example, future research could investigate how trust in public institutions evolves with election cycles and major policy or reform decisions. Additional survey waves would also have the significant advantage to enable time-series analysis

> 21This finding echoes empirical evidence that while welfare inequalities are declining in Morocco, vulnerable and lower middle-class households have a relatively worse perception of the evolution of their living standards than better-o↵households. See Clementi et al. 2019.

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and to look at the evolution over time of trust in institutions, with the same degree of disaggregation. Also, future data collection could provide data on subnational institutions, including at the municipality levels. Other surveys on trust in Morocco (MIPA trust index, Arab barometer) show stronger trust in local elected governments than central government. Additional research could try to tease out the causes of such variation.

The paper’s findings have important policy implications. In particular, by highlighting the relation between transparency and institutional trust, the results echo ongoing debates about the need for critical (rather than blind) trust to generate positive spillovers for development (Zmerli and Van der Meer 2017, Norris et al. 2019). It is only when citizens have the information to critically evaluate policies, and the institutional channels to contest them and hold officeholders accountable, that they can place their trust - and resources - at the disposal of state institutions. When such space is limited, mistrust can turn into distrust, challenging stability and development opportunities.

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