Hindsight Bias and Trust in Government

Herz, Holger; Kistler, Deborah; Zehnder, Christian; Zihlmann, Christian (2024). Hindsight Bias and Trust in Government The review of economics and statistics, pp. 1-30. MIT Press 10.1162/rest_a_01421

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We empirically assess whether hindsight bias affects citizens’ evaluation of their political actors. Using an incentivized elicitation technique, we demonstrate that people systemat- ically misremember their past policy preferences regarding how to best fight the Covid-19 pandemic. At the peak of the first wave in the United States, the average respondent mis- takenly believes they supported significantly stricter restrictions at the onset of the first wave than they actually did. Exogenous variation in the extent of hindsight bias, induced through a randomized survey experiment, indicates that hindsight bias has a negative causal impact on the change in trust in government.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	Business School > Institute for Applied Data Science & Finance Business School
Name:	Herz, Holger; Kistler, Deborah; Zehnder, Christian and Zihlmann, Christian0000-0002-7394-5334
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
ISSN:	0034-6535
Publisher:	MIT Press
Language:	English
Submitter:	Christian Zihlmann
Date Deposited:	07 Feb 2024 08:16
Last Modified:	17 Mar 2024 01:39
Publisher DOI:	10.1162/rest_a_01421
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Hindsight bias Trust in Government Evaluation distortion Biased Beliefs
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.21075
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/21075