This paper provides a systematic review and meta-analysis of 61 studies reporting 329 coefficients derived from over three and a half million observations globally, examining the consequences of political trust. The analysis shows that political trust is weakly to moderately related to outcomes such as voter turnout, vote choice, policy preferences, and compliance, but is unrelated to informal participation. These results are robust to various considerations, including measurement of trust, modelling strategy, region of study, publication bias, and study design. The review highlights substantial geographical and methodological gaps, particularly the reliance on cross-sectional designs. The results show that trust is importantly and robustly related to what people want from their political systems and how they interact with it. The analysis provides a robust, systematic, and empirical foundation to advance research on political trust. The paper also discusses the theoretical predictions for policy preferences, political participation, and compliance, and the potential moderators that may condition the relationship between trust and its outcomes. The results indicate that trust has a small-to-moderate effect on most outcomes studied, with the strongest effects on policy preferences, particularly on environmental policy, immigration policy, and spending policy. Trust also has a moderate effect on compliance with public health regulations during the COVID pandemic. The paper highlights the limitations of the existing literature, including the reliance on survey-observational data and the lack of experimental studies. It also discusses the conceptual nature of political trust, highlighting the need for more nuanced measures that capture the multidimensionality of trust. The paper concludes that political trust is a significant factor in political life, and its decline can have serious consequences for political participation and policy preferences. The results suggest that trust is a 'reservoir of support' for governments and that its decline does not signal the rise of an engaged but critical citizenry, but rather an 'exit' from political life. The paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of political trust and highlights the need for further research to address the existing gaps in the literature.This paper provides a systematic review and meta-analysis of 61 studies reporting 329 coefficients derived from over three and a half million observations globally, examining the consequences of political trust. The analysis shows that political trust is weakly to moderately related to outcomes such as voter turnout, vote choice, policy preferences, and compliance, but is unrelated to informal participation. These results are robust to various considerations, including measurement of trust, modelling strategy, region of study, publication bias, and study design. The review highlights substantial geographical and methodological gaps, particularly the reliance on cross-sectional designs. The results show that trust is importantly and robustly related to what people want from their political systems and how they interact with it. The analysis provides a robust, systematic, and empirical foundation to advance research on political trust. The paper also discusses the theoretical predictions for policy preferences, political participation, and compliance, and the potential moderators that may condition the relationship between trust and its outcomes. The results indicate that trust has a small-to-moderate effect on most outcomes studied, with the strongest effects on policy preferences, particularly on environmental policy, immigration policy, and spending policy. Trust also has a moderate effect on compliance with public health regulations during the COVID pandemic. The paper highlights the limitations of the existing literature, including the reliance on survey-observational data and the lack of experimental studies. It also discusses the conceptual nature of political trust, highlighting the need for more nuanced measures that capture the multidimensionality of trust. The paper concludes that political trust is a significant factor in political life, and its decline can have serious consequences for political participation and policy preferences. The results suggest that trust is a 'reservoir of support' for governments and that its decline does not signal the rise of an engaged but critical citizenry, but rather an 'exit' from political life. The paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of political trust and highlights the need for further research to address the existing gaps in the literature.