Measuring Public Trust

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Measuring Public Trust

Webinar

Thursday 12 January 2023, 12:30 — 13:30

Online

Presented by David Nguyen (ESCoE)

People’s trust in institutions is increasingly referenced as a key factor for the success of public policies. This includes the compliance with public health measures, legal and tax systems. Public trust also matters for international collaboration between countries, and for tackling long-term intergenerational challenges caused by climate, demographic and technological changes.  

Despite the increasing awareness of why public trust is crucial for policymaking, empirical measurement has been lagging behind. To some degree this can be traced back to theoretical and practical challenges in constructing coherent and comparable measures of trust. In a multi-annual flagship project, the OECD has been making some progress on both fronts, aided by national statistical agencies and leading academics.

In this webinar, David will present how some of the measurement challenges can be overcome and how the OECD has been building a measurement agenda related to public trust. He will also present some findings from the 2021 OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions, a representative survey based on more than 50,000 respondents across 22 countries.

David Nguyen was part of the team delivering the inaugural OECD Trust Survey and has published several papers and reports on the issue. He specialises in economic research and economic measurement with the aim of improving the evidence base for public policy.

A Research Associate at ESCoE since 2018, he previously worked as a Senior Economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. In addition to public trust, some of his research explores the implications from rising digitalisation of the economy on wellbeing and productivity. David obtained his PhD from the London School of Economics.

Video Recording