Governments are subjected to many sources of competition that can be productive or destructive to their ability to maintain citizen trust. This paper explores the role of competition in the local government marketplace as a determinant of trust in local government. Using individual respondent data from the Gallup Poll Social Series in the United States from 2001 to 2022, this paper explores the effect of policy space autonomy and availability of choice in government on trust in local government. We find evidence of productive competition increasing with the number of local governments in the respondent's labor market. Similarly, states that restrict the diversity of choice through tax and expenditure limits reduce productive competition, while limits on issuing debt enhance local trust. The results are supported by numerous robustness checks and a placebo test on trust in the federal government.

中文翻译：

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对地方政府的信任是否受到选择“市场”的影响？


政府面临许多竞争来源，这些竞争可能会对其维持公民信任的能力产生积极影响，也可能会产生破坏性影响。本文探讨了地方政府市场竞争作为地方政府信任决定因素的作用。本文利用 2001 年至 2022 年美国盖洛普民意调查社会系列的个人受访者数据，探讨了政策空间自主权和政府选择的可用性对地方政府信任的影响。我们发现，有证据表明，随着受访者劳动力市场中地方政府数量的增加，生产性竞争也会加剧。同样，通过税收和支出限制来限制选择多样性的国家减少了生产性竞争，而限制发行债务则增强了地方信任。这些结果得到了大量稳健性检查和对联邦政府信任的安慰剂测试的支持。