IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2005.70.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Making Capitalism Work: Social Capital and Economic Growth in Italy, 1970-1995

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas P. Lyon

    (Indiana University)

Abstract

Using data on the 20 Italian regions for the period 1970-1995, I examine whether the presence of social capital, as reflected in a number of different measures collected by Putnam (1993), affects economic productivity. I find three types of effects. First, social capital, when treated as an input to regional production, has a positive and significant effect in the South, but a much weaker effect in the North. Second, some forms of social capital can significantly increase regions’ propensities to make physical capital investments; however, dense networks of association reduce capital investment in both the North and South. Instrumental variables estimates show that social capital affects growth both directly and through affecting investment in physical capital. Third, social capital contributes positively to the rate of total factor productivity growth in the Italian regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas P. Lyon, 2005. "Making Capitalism Work: Social Capital and Economic Growth in Italy, 1970-1995," Working Papers 2005.70, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2005.70
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.feem.it/m/publications_pages/NDL2005-070.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. John F. Helliwell & Robert D. Putnam, 1995. "Economic Growth and Social Capital in Italy," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 295-307, Summer.
    3. John F. Helliwell, 1996. "Economic Growth and Social Capital in Asia," NBER Working Papers 5470, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    5. Jaffe, Adam B, 1986. "Technological Opportunity and Spillovers of R&D: Evidence from Firms' Patents, Profits, and Market Value," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 984-1001, December.
    6. Ellis Goldberg, 1996. "Thinking about how Democracy Works," Politics & Society, , vol. 24(1), pages 7-18, March.
    7. Jaffe, Adam B, 1989. "Real Effects of Academic Research," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 957-970, December.
    8. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    9. Dowrick, Steve & Gemmell, Norman, 1991. "Industrialisation, Catching Up and Economic Growth: A Comparative Study across the World's Capitalist Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 263-275, March.
    10. Audretsch, David B & Vivarelli, Marco, 1996. "Firms Size and R&D Spillovers: Evidence from Italy," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 249-258, June.
    11. Glenn C. Loury, 1976. "A Dynamic Theory of Racial Income Differences," Discussion Papers 225, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    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. Emanuele Felice, 2013. "Regional income inequality in Italy in the long run (1871–2001). Patterns and determinants," UHE Working papers 2013_08, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    2. Felice, Emanuele, 2009. "Regional value added in Italy (1891-2001) : estimates, elaborations," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp09-08, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    3. Ernest Miguelez & Rosina Moreno & Manuel Artis, 2011. "Does Social Capital Reinforce Technological Inputs in the Creation of Knowledge? Evidence from the Spanish Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(8), pages 1019-1038.
    4. Calcagnini, Giorgio & Perugini, Francesco, 2019. "Social capital and well-being in the Italian provinces," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Syed Sibghatullah Shah & Abdul Jalil & Syed Akhter Hussain Shah, 2020. "Growth Effects of Religion Dependent Social Capital: An Empirical Evidence," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 423-443, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social capital; Growth; Investment; Italy;

    JEL classification:

    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fem:femwpa:2005.70. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (barbara racah) The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask barbara racah to update the entry or send us the correct email address. General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.