Never Forget the First Time: The Persistent Effects of Corruption and the Rise of Populism in Italy

The paper studies the long-term impact of corruption on trust towards institutions. Previous studies have demonstrated that exposure to corruption may lower institutional trust over the short term. Whether those short-term effects translate into persistent effects is not known. We study the onset of a corruption shock that took place in Italy between 1992 and 1994. Using recent data collected by the OECD, we find that young first-time voters exposed to this corruption scandal in the early 1990s, still today, have significantly lower institutional trust and were more likely to choose populist parties at the 2018 national elections.