Trust Me, I'm an Expert: Evaluating the Relation Between Expertise and Trust in Regulators

ABSTRACT Trust is central to research on regulatory governance, underpinning both the legitimacy and effectiveness of regulatory bodies. Yet, while its importance is often assumed, less is known about its organizational drivers. Departing from the idea that regulatory agencies are expert‐based organizations within their fields, we argue that trust depends on the composition of regulators' staff, through the mechanisms of competence and goodwill. Using survey data from 1385 respondents across three policy sectors and six countries, combined with biographical information on regulators' staff, we examine how educational attainment and professional experience affect trust. Multilevel analyses show that – contrary to expectations about competence – educational attainment does not significantly influence trust, while prior private sector experience among regulatory staff tends to lower overall trust in regulators. However, this effect is conditioned by actor type: representatives of private interests display higher trust when regulators' staff have private sector experience, whereas public‐interest actors trust regulators less. This demonstrates how shared professional backgrounds may signal mutual goodwill among some actors, but also raise concerns about impartiality and capture among others. The paper contributes to scholarship on regulatory legitimacy and organizational design by demonstrating how the expertise and professional backgrounds of regulators' staff shape the perceived trustworthiness of regulatory bodies by various stakeholders.