Political consent in Eastern EU countries: A macroeconomic perspective

The aim of the paper is to investigate the link between trust in national political institutions and macroeconomic performance in the long run in Eastern EU countries. The objective is to answer the question whether the liberalization process and the subsequent exposure to globalized markets realized macroeconomic outcomes that are still cause of concern for these young democracies. The empirical technique is the panel dynamic ordinary least square (PDOLS) estimator, through which the effect of inflation inequality and debt on citizens’ trust in national governments and national parliaments is evaluated in term of long-run dynamics. Results show a negative impact of the indicators considered and highlight the role of macro-variables in the institutional consolidation process even in presence of path dependence dynamics of trust.