Abstract

This chapter surveys research on social capital. We explore the concepts that motivate the social capital literature, efforts to formally model social capital using economic theory, the econometrics of social capital, and empirical studies of the role of social capital in various socioeconomic outcomes.

Keywords

development, growth, identification, inequality, networks, social capital, trust

JEL classification: E26, O10, O40, L14, Z13

... in every community there seems to be some sort of justice, and some type of friendship, also. At any rate, fellow-voyagers and fellow-soldiers are called friends, and so are members of other communities. And the extent of their com­munity is the extent of their friendship, since it is also the extent of the justice found there...What is just...is not the same for parents towards children as for one brother towards another, and the same for companions as for fellow-citizens, similarly with the other types of friendship...what is unjust towards each of these is also different, and become more unjust as it is practiced on closer friends. It is more shocking, e.g., to rob a companion of money than to rob a fellow-citizen, to fail to help a brother than a stranger, and to strike one’s father than anyone else. What is just also naturally increases with friendship, since it involves the same people and extends over an equal area.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, 9.61 [Aristotle (1985)].

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