Corruption can erode political trust and a well-functioning democratic system, but it is unclear whether perceptions of corruption are significantly associated with citizens’ perceptions about the fairness of income distribution. This study thus examines the role of political trust in shaping the relationship between perceptions of corruption and perceived fairness of income distribution for East Asian countries. The findings show that perceived corruption has strong detrimental effects on political trust, and that those who have lower levels of political trust are more likely to perceive the income distribution as unfair in their countries. Causal mediation analysis results indicate that political trust plays an important role in mediating the negative effect of perceived corruption on perceived fairness of income distribution. Moreover, the results from examining the mutual causality linking corruption, political trust, and perceived fairness suggest that the reciprocal causal effects are also significant and robust.

中文翻译：

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腐败与公平：来自东亚国家的经验证据

腐败会侵蚀政治信任和运转良好的民主制度，但尚不清楚对腐败的看法是否与公民对收入分配公平的看法显着相关。因此，本研究考察了政治信任在塑造东亚国家腐败观念与收入分配公平观念之间的关系方面的作用。研究结果表明，感知到的腐败对政治信任有很大的不利影响，而那些政治信任水平较低的人更有可能认为其国家的收入分配不公平。因果中介分析结果表明，政治信任在中介腐败感知对收入分配公平感知的负面影响中起重要作用。而且，