This paper studies the accumulation of social capital in Italy in the light of Durlauf’s (2002) econometric approach. Social interactions are taken as a robust definition of social capital. The following empirical proxies are used: active and passive participation in various kinds of organisations and frequency of contact with friends. In order to merge information from different datasets, such as ISTAT’s (Italian Central Statistical Office) Multiscopo survey and Bank of Italy’s SHIW (Household Surveys of Income and Wealth), a statistical matching methodology is implemented to build pseudo panel data. The main results can be summed up as follows. Firstly, unlike in previous works for the US (Alesina and La Ferrara, 1999; Costa and Khan, 2001), income inequality is found not to matter for the accumulation of social capital. Secondly, participation turns out to be a “normal good”, like in Alesina and La Ferrara (1999), as active and passive participation is positively related to median regional household income. Finally, some potential instrumental variables correlated with social capital accumulation and uncorrelated with household income are found, possibly providing means to deal with Durlauf’s econometric identification problem.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
796.
Find related papers by JEL classification: Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
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Steven N. Durlauf & Marcel Fafchamps, 2004.
"Social Capital,"
NBER Working Papers
10485, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Durlauf, Steven N. & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2005.
"Social Capital,"
Handbook of Economic Growth,
in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1639-1699
Elsevier.
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Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2002.
"Who trusts others?,"
Journal of Public Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 207-234, August.
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