IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mdl/mdlpap/0202.html

Social Capital and Consumption among Agricultural Households

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Isham

Abstract

This paper develops a life cycle model for agricultural households in which social capital is a fixed input into household production. The intertemporal solutions of the model yield four results that are consistent with recent empirical and qualitative literature on social capital and consumption among agricultural households: commodity consumption will rise for an agricultural household in a village where public social capital is increasing - even if the household itself has invested little in their own accumulation of social relations; increased inequality within villages is associated with lower social capital; public social capital will decrease significantly in the presence of migration of young from rural communities; and current consumption levels will be less sensitive to increases in income uncertainty when social capital is increasing. The paper uses information on agricultural households in Tanzania to illustrate the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Isham, 2002. "Social Capital and Consumption among Agricultural Households," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0202, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.middlebury.edu/services/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0202.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Social Interactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1063-1093, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Dercon, Stefan, 1996. "Risk, Crop Choice, and Savings: Evidence from Tanzania," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(3), pages 485-513, April.
    3. Grootaert, Christiaan, 1999. "Social capital, houshold welfare, and poverty in Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2148, The World Bank.
    4. Maurice Schiff, 1992. "Social Capital, Labor Mobility, and Welfare," Rationality and Society, , vol. 4(2), pages 157-175, April.
    5. Nugent, Jeffrey B., 1993. "Between state, markets and households: A neoinstitutional analysis of local organizations and institutions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 623-632, April.
    6. Betancourt, Roger R, 1996. "Growth Capabilities and Development: Implications for Transition Processes in Cuba," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 315-331, January.
    7. Bardhan, Pranab, 1993. "Analytics of the institutions of informal cooperation in rural development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 633-639, April.
    8. Narayan, Deepa & Pritchett, Lant, 1999. "Cents and Sociability: Household Income and Social Capital in Rural Tanzania," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(4), pages 871-897, July.
    9. Jonathan Isham, 2002. "The Effect of Social Capital on Fertiliser Adoption: Evidence from Rural Tanzania," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 11(1), pages 39-60, March.
    10. Greif, Avner, 1994. "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 912-950, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Coady, David & Xinyi Dai & Limin Wang, 2001. "Community programs and women's participation : the Chinese experience," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2622, The World Bank.
    2. Robison, Lindon J. & Siles, Marcelo E. & Schmid, A. Allan, 2002. "Social Capital And Poverty Reduction: Toward A Mature Paradigm," Agricultural Economic Report Series 10941, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    3. Jonathan Isham, 2002. "The Effect of Social Capital on Fertiliser Adoption: Evidence from Rural Tanzania," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 11(1), pages 39-60, March.
    4. Schiff, Maurice, 1999. "Labor market integration in the presence of social capital," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2222, The World Bank.
    5. Grootaert, Christiaan, 1999. "Social capital, houshold welfare, and poverty in Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2148, The World Bank.
    6. Sabatini, Fabio, 2006. "The Empirics of Social Capital and Economic Development: A Critical Perspective," Knowledge, Technology, Human Capital Working Papers 12097, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    7. Miguel, Edward A. & Gertler, Paul & Levine, David I., 2003. "Did Industrialization Destroy Social Capital in Indonesia?," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt9kt2m860, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    8. Anh Thu Quang Pham & Pundarik Mukhopadhaya, 2022. "Multidimensionl Poverty and The Role of Social Capital in Poverty Alleviation Among Ethnic Groups in Rural Vietnam: A Multilevel Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 281-317, January.
    9. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Anil Rupasingha & Thor Watson, 2022. "In-migration and Dilution of Community Social Capital," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 45(1), pages 36-57, January.
    10. Rupasingha, Anil & Goetz, Stephan J. & Freshwater, David, 2006. "The production of social capital in US counties," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 83-101, February.
    11. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11437 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Shideler, David W., 2004. "Determinants Of Individual Social Capital Investment," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20224, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Cheng, Xiaoyu & Wang, Jianying & Chen, Kevin Z., 2022. "Does villager social capital hinder poverty targeting? Evidence from poverty-stricken county of Western China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    14. Zhang, Yanlong & Zhou, Xiaoyu & Lei, Wei, 2017. "Social Capital and Its Contingent Value in Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Western China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 350-361.
    15. Jean-Marc Callois & Bertrand Schmitt, 2009. "The role of social capital components on local economic growth: Local cohesion and openness in French rural areas," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 90(3), pages 257-286.
    16. Rodriguez, Luis Carlos & Pascual, Unai, 2004. "Land clearance and social capital in mountain agro-ecosystems: the case of Opuntia scrubland in Ayacucho, Peru," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 243-252, June.
    17. Schady, Norbert R., 2001. "Who participates : the supply of volunteer labor and the distribution of government programs in rural Peru," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2671, The World Bank.
    18. Alain De Janvry & Nancy McCarthy & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 1998. "Endogenous Provision and Appropriation in the Commons," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(3), pages 658-664.
    19. Lindokuhle Njozela & Justine Burns & Arnim Langer, 2018. "The Effects of Social Exclusion and Group Heterogeneity on the Provision of Public Goods," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-21, August.
    20. Callois, Jean-Marc & Schmitt, Bertrand, 2009. "The role of social capital components on local economic growth: Local cohesion and openness in French rural areas," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement (RAEStud), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 90(3).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    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:mdl:mdlpap:0202. 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: Vijaya Wunnava (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.