Government size and trust

This paper uses individual level data (the Japanese General Social Survey) to examine how government size influences generalized trust. After controlling for the endogeneity of government size using instrumental variables, I found: (1) Using all samples, government size is not associated with generalized trust, and (2) After splitting the sample into workers and non-workers, government size does not influence generalized trust for non-workers whereas it significantly reduces generalized trust for workers. This suggests that workers, through their work experience, might have to face greater bureaucratic red tape coming from “larger government”, leading to negative externality effects on relationships of trust in the labor market