IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v23y2012i2p127-136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When sociable workers pay off: Can firms internalize social capital externalities?

Author

Listed:
  • Ferreira-Lopes, Alexandra
  • Roseta-Palma, Catarina
  • Sequeira, Tiago Neves

Abstract

We use an endogenous growth model to contrast the socially optimal allocation of human capital with the decentralized solution, in a context where workers make the choices that determine social capital accumulation. As social capital is expected to increase productivity but is not traded in markets, a positive social capital externality is identified. We discuss the possibility that, in response to this externality, firms subsidize social capital accumulation activities, incurring into additional costs that are recouped through productivity gains. This reaction by firms may be seen as a justification for some corporate social responsibility actions targeted at workers, although a full internalization of the externality does not look achievable in practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferreira-Lopes, Alexandra & Roseta-Palma, Catarina & Sequeira, Tiago Neves, 2012. "When sociable workers pay off: Can firms internalize social capital externalities?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 127-136.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:23:y:2012:i:2:p:127-136
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2012.01.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X12000057
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2012.01.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C. Jensen, 2010. "Value Maximization, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 22(1), pages 32-42, January.
    2. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    3. Geoffrey Heal, 2005. "Corporate Social Responsibility: An Economic and Financial Framework," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 30(3), pages 387-409, July.
    4. Paul F. Whiteley, 2000. "Economic Growth and Social Capital," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 48(3), pages 443-466, June.
    5. Lippert, Steffen & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2011. "Networks of relations and Word-of-Mouth Communication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 202-217, May.
    6. Dam, Lammertjan & Heijdra, Ben J., 2011. "The environmental and macroeconomic effects of socially responsible investment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1424-1434, September.
    7. Andy Lockett & Jeremy Moon & Wayne Visser, 2006. "Corporate Social Responsibility in Management Research: Focus, Nature, Salience and Sources of Influence," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 115-136, January.
    8. Stefano Bartolini & Ennio Bilancini & Francesco Sarracino, 2009. "Sociability Predicts Happiness: World-Wide Evidence from Time Series," Department of Economics University of Siena 579, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    9. Dam, Lammertjan, 2011. "Socially responsible investment in an environmental overlapping generations model," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 1015-1027.
    10. Brekke, Kjell Arne & Nyborg, Karine, 2008. "Attracting responsible employees: Green production as labor market screening," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 509-526, December.
    11. Sarracino, Francesco, 2010. "Social capital and subjective well-being trends: Comparing 11 western European countries," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 482-517, August.
    12. Arnold, Lutz G., 1998. "Growth, Welfare, and Trade in an Integrated Model of Human-Capital Accumulation and Research," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 81-105, January.
    13. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    14. Baron, David P., 2008. "Managerial contracting and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 268-288, February.
    15. Catherine M. Paul & Donald Siegel, 2006. "Corporate social responsibility and economic performance," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 207-211, December.
    16. Silvia Sacchetti & Roger Sugden (ed.), 2009. "Knowledge in the Development of Economies," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13301.
    17. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2007. "Retailing public goods: The economics of corporate social responsibility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1645-1663, September.
    18. Joel Sobel, 2002. "Can We Trust Social Capital?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 139-154, March.
    19. Arnold, Lutz G., 2000. "Endogenous growth with physical capital, human capital and product variety: A comment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1599-1605, August.
    20. Roseta-Palma, Catarina & Ferreira-Lopes, Alexandra & Sequeira, Tiago Neves, 2010. "Externalities in an endogenous growth model with social and natural capital," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 603-612, January.
    21. Chou, Yuan K., 2006. "Three simple models of social capital and economic growth," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 889-912, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Salahuddin, Mohammad & Tisdell, Clem & Burton, Lorelle & Alam, Khorshed, 2016. "Does internet stimulate the accumulation of social capital? A macro-perspective from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 43-55.
    2. Hoang Thanh Nhon, 2020. "The Intellectual Capital, Firm Performance and the Moderating Role of Manager Skills," Business Management and Strategy, Macrothink Institute, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Mohammad Salahuddin & Khorshed Alam & Lorelle Burton, 2016. "Does Internet Usage Stimulate the Accumulation of Social Capital? A Panel nvestigation for Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development Countries," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(1), pages 347-353.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roseta-Palma, Catarina & Ferreira-Lopes, Alexandra & Sequeira, Tiago Neves, 2010. "Externalities in an endogenous growth model with social and natural capital," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 603-612, January.
    2. Dam, Lammertjan & Scholtens, Bert, 2015. "Toward a theory of responsible investing: On the economic foundations of corporate social responsibility," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 103-121.
    3. Werner Hediger, 2013. "From Multifunctionality and Sustainability of Agriculture to the Social Responsibility of the Agri-food System," Journal of Socio-Economics in Agriculture (Until 2015: Yearbook of Socioeconomics in Agriculture), Swiss Society for Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, vol. 6(1), pages 59-80.
    4. Markus Kitzmueller, 2008. "Economics and Corporate Social Responsibility," Economics Working Papers ECO2008/37, European University Institute.
    5. Robert Mosch & Henriëtte Prast, 2008. "Confidence and trust: empirical investigations for the Netherlands and the financial sector," DNB Occasional Studies 602, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    6. Fabio Sabatini & Francesca Modena & Ermanno Tortia, 2014. "Do cooperative enterprises create social trust?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 621-641, March.
    7. Fabio Sabatini & Francesco Sarracino, 2013. "Will Facebook save or destroy social capital? An empirical investigation into the effect of online interactions on trust and networks," Department of Economics University of Siena 692, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    8. Felix Roth, 2022. "Does Too Much Trust Hamper Economic Growth?," Contributions to Economics, in: Intangible Capital and Growth, chapter 0, pages 141-165, Springer.
    9. Yoshiho Matsunaga, 2015. "Salary commensurate with social capital," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(14), pages 1116-1121, September.
    10. Sabatini, Fabio & Sarracino, Francesco, 2014. "E-participation: Social Capital and the Internet," Economy and Society 186606, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    11. Mina Baliamoune‐Lutz, 2009. "Human Well‐Being Effects Of Institutions And Social Capital," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 27(1), pages 54-66, January.
    12. Fleckinger, Pierre & Glachant, Matthieu, 2011. "Negotiating a voluntary agreement when firms self-regulate," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 41-52, July.
    13. Moreno-Hurtado, Carlos Andres & Ochoa-Jimenez, Diego Alejandro & Izuierdo-Montoya, Gonzalo Leonardo, 2018. "A simplified endogenous economic growth model with social capital: Evidence for Ecuador," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 14(2), February.
    14. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2008. "Social capital in the creation of human capital and economic growth: A productive consumption approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 2020-2033, October.
    15. Christian Bjørnskov & Kim Sønderskov, 2013. "Is Social Capital a Good Concept?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(3), pages 1225-1242, December.
    16. Krzysztof Kostro, 2005. "Kapitał społeczny w teorii ekonomicznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 7-8, pages 1-28.
    17. Roth, Felix, 2006. "Trust and Economic Growth: Conflicting Results between Cross-Sectional and Panel Analysis," Ratio Working Papers 102, The Ratio Institute, revised 15 Nov 2006.
    18. Baliamoune-Lutz, Mina, 2011. "Trust-based social capital, institutions, and development," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 335-346, August.
    19. Stephen Knowles, 2006. "Is Social Capital Part of the Institutions Continuum and is it a Deep Determinant of Development?," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-25, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Markus Kitzmueller & Jay Shimshack, 2012. "Economic Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 51-84, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corporate social responsibility; Social capital; Human capital; Economic growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:23:y:2012:i:2:p:127-136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/525148 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.