Social Capital, Household Welfare and Poverty in Burkina Faso

This paper investigates empirically the importance of socialcapital, in the form of local associations and networks, forthe welfare of rural households in Burkina Faso. It draws ona unique database combining standard information on householdwelfare with multidimensional measures of social capital. Theanalysis finds that higher levels of social capital are associatedwith higher household per capita expenditures and better accessto credit. The distribution of social capital was found to bemore equal than that of other assets. Poor households and thosewho own little land obtain a higher return from social capitalthan other households.