John Helliwell (Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia)
Abstract
In this chapter, John Helliwell sets the scene for many of the papers that follow by providing an up-to-date and lucid survey of the literature on the impact of social capital on both the economy or economic performance and well-being. This latter term is closely related to the concept of social progress used in this volume. He begins by defining social capital as the networks and norms that facilitate cooperative activities within groups (bonding social capital) and between groups (bridging social capital). Helliwell documents a number of studies that show that social capital actually saves lives. He surveys the literature on subjective well-being, pointing out that unemployment lowers subjective well-being by more than the usual measure of economic cost and certainly more than inflation.
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ReDIF This chapter was published in: Andrew Sharpe, Executive Director & France St-Hilaire, Vice-President , Research & Keith Banting, Director (ed.) The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2001: The Longest Decade: Canada in the 1990s, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, pages , 2001.
Find related papers by JEL classification: Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996.
"How Wide Is the Border?,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-25, December.
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