Explaining EU Citizens' Trust in the ECB in Normal and Crisis Times

Abstract: We study the determinants of trust in the ECB as measured by the European Commission's Eurobarometer survey in particular during the global financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis. We find that the fall in trust in the ECB in crisis times can be rather well explained based on the pre-crisis determinants, and show that the fall in trust reflected the macroeconomic deterioration, a more generalised fall in the trust in European institutions in the wake of the crisis as well as the severity of the banking sector's problems, to which the ECB was associated in the public opinion.