Vertrauen in Institutionen als Voraussetzung für Wirtschaftsentwicklung? Eine Analyse am Beispiel ausgewählter Staaten Südosteuropas more

As a point of departure for this article serves the observation that several European transformation countries still are confronted with serious problems, even though political and economic systems changes already were implemented. This leads to the question, why the beneficial effects of the market could not evolve in these countries so far. The authors’ hypothesis claims that this, at least partially, can be ascribed to a lack of public trust in the existing institutions. Leveraging ideas and concepts of New Institutional Economics at the beginning of the article, and after defining the key terms, the relevant theoretical interrelations of the research question are explained in greater detail. The second part of the article applies an empirical check of these interrelations. The analysis shows that to a certain degree the interviewed experts as well as the results of the correlation analysis confirm the theoretically conceptualized interrelations. Therefore, one of the primary objectives for economic policy in transition countries should be a sustainable consolidation of public trust in institutions.