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  • August 2020
  • Article
  • Journal of Political Economy

Trust in State and Non-State Actors: Evidence from Dispute Resolution in Pakistan

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ali Cheema, Asim I. Khwaja and James A. Robinson
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Abstract

Lack of trust in state institutions is a pervasive problem in many developing countries. This paper investigates whether information about improved public services can help build trust in state institutions and move people away from non-state actors. We find that (truthful) information about reduced delays in state courts in rural Pakistan leads to citizens reporting higher likelihood of using them and to greater allocations to the state in two high-stakes lab games. More interestingly, we find negative indirect effects on non-state actors and show that these effects are mediated by changes in beliefs. Our preferred interpretation explains these behaviors as a response to improved beliefs about state actors that then make individuals interact less with non-state actors and as a result downgrade their beliefs about them.

Keywords

Dispute Resolution; Lab-in-the-field Games; Legitimacy; Motivated Reasoning; Non-state Actors; State Capacity; Trust; Conflict and Resolution; Information; Developing Countries and Economies

Citation

Acemoglu, Daron, Ali Cheema, Asim I. Khwaja, and James A. Robinson. "Trust in State and Non-State Actors: Evidence from Dispute Resolution in Pakistan." Journal of Political Economy 128, no. 8 (August 2020): 3090–3147.
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About The Author

Asim Ijaz Khwaja

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

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    • 2023
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    Crowding in Private Quality: The Equilibrium Effects of Public Spending in Education

    By: Tahir Andrabi, Natalie Bau, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Naureen Karachiwalla
    • January 2019
    • American Economic Review

    Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats Through Performance-Based Postings

    By: Adnan Q. Khan, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Benjamin A. Olken
More from the Authors
  • Crowding in Private Quality: The Equilibrium Effects of Public Spending in Education By: Tahir Andrabi, Natalie Bau, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Naureen Karachiwalla
  • Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats Through Performance-Based Postings By: Adnan Q. Khan, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Benjamin A. Olken
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