Trust and socio-economic development: cluster analysis of parameter interdependencies

Abstract

The article focuses on the detection and analysis of the interdependencies between socio-economic indicators (GDP per capita, human development index HDI) and indices of interpersonal and institutional trust. We consider the following key issues: a review of definitions and indicators of trust; calculation of indices of interpersonal and institutional trust (which is represented by the trust to the government) based on international surveys; cluster analysis of the relationship between indices of trust and GDP and HDI indicators (by a sample of world countries).

There are similarities between definitions of interpersonal trust and the ability to operationalize this concept, presenting it in the form of quantitative indicators. The definition of institutional trust is not of an operational nature. Trust to institutions corresponds to the degree of satisfaction of people’s expectations about these institutes. However, the evaluation of the institution reflects people’s attitude to the agents of these institutions, thus satisfaction from a particular institution is the comprehensive result of the efficiency assessment of such relations and the activities performed by the agents of these institutions.

Based on the calculated indices of interpersonal trust and trust to the government we show that Ukraine is a country with an average interpersonal trust and a weak trust to the government. The study of relationships between the indices of trust indicators and GDP per capita and the human development index (HDI) was conducted using cluster analysis. The results of the analysis give grounds to conclude that in countries with high level of socio-economic development (GDP per capita and HDI) the level of interpersonal trust and trust to the government is also high. Nevertheless, in medium and low values of the parameters analyzed there was no certain dependency between the trust and the aforementioned socio-economical indices.