Politicians' misconduct and the erosion of political trust

• Grant number: 22/07076-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: May 01, 2023
• End date: April 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics
• Principal Investigator: Raphael Bottura Corbi
• Grantee: Dimitri de Oliveira e Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Economia, Administração, Contabilidade e Atuária (FEA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

We propose to investigate the role of political scandals in explaining the depreciation of social capital. Using scandals involving US Representatives provided by (Basinger, 2013) and measures of self-reported political trust available from the American National Elections Studies (ANES), we propose to employ a dynamic DiD approach that can account for short and medium-term effects. Our investigation proposal also considers the investigation of how political participation and political engagement, and their pattern, can be affected by scandals. Since it is possible that scandals affect the behavior of individuals that go beyond the political context, we also propose to investigate other alternative outcomes.