Decentralization,social capital,and regional growth: The case of the Italian North-South divide

This paper aims to show how a region's constant level of social capital may have a very different impact on its economic growth depending on whether the central or the local level of government is responsible for regional policy.Our case study is the economic performance of Northern and Southern Italy in the post-World War II period, when a long phase of regional convergence came to a sudden halt in the early 1970s. We focus on the economic effects of the 1970s institutional reforms on government decentralization and wage bargaining. Our main hypothesis is that decentralization allocates the provision of public capital to institutions, the local ones, more exposed to a territory's social capital. Since social capital is lower in the Southern regions, decentralization made their developmental policies less effective from 1970 onwards, and regional inequality increased.We build an endogenous growth model augmented to include the interaction between social capital and public investment as well as the reform of the Italian labour market. We calibrate our model using data of the Italian regions for 1951–71. Our quantitative results indicate that decentralization triggered the influence of local social capital on growth and played a central role in halting the convergence path of the low-social-capital regions.     

Social Capital and Women’s Labor Force Participation in Chile

ABSTRACT

Using data from Chile, this study analyzes the relationship between different forms of social capital and women’s labor force participation, accounting for both endogeneity problems and differences among women of different economic strata. First, the results suggest that only some types of social capital are relevant for labor force participation: namely, networks with weaker yet far-reaching connections, including higher-status individuals. There are neither empirical nor theoretical reasons to believe that women have better access to such networks than men. Second, this type of social capital is only relevant for the economic integration of the richest women, failing to increase labor force participation among women of the other 80 percent of households. Thus, this study concludes that policies targeted at women’s economic integration based on the presumption that women have more social capital than men are deeply flawed.     

珠三角地区资本结构与劳资关系的实证研究

根据资本-劳动替代的“拐点论”,经济发展的初期总是伴随着物质资本的积累,物质资本将在相当长的时期占据经济增长的主导地位;由于资本劳动的边际替代率递减,当物质资本积累处于一定阶段,产生对人力资本更多需求,人力资本则成为这个时期的主要资本;只有在经济持续发展,政治文明发展到一定程度,信任、规范、网络和社会公德等社会资本才有可能成为推动经济发展的主导力量。珠三角地区城市的劳资关系在近30年均处于下降趋势,物质资本总体处于上升趋势,人力资本意义上的劳动力尤其是高层次高素质的劳动力较缺乏;社会资本可以显著的促进物质资本和人力资本的积累,物质资本水平的提高并不必然产生人力资本积累和社会资本积累的结果,人力资本积累也不必然促进社会资本的发展。需要转变经济发展方式,为资本演化创造物质条件,促进人力资本和社会资本积累,并在企业管理层面上促进合作型劳资关系的形成。     

Does institutional quality resolve the Lucas Paradox?

The Lucas Paradox observes that capital flows predominantly to relatively rich countries, contradicting the neoclassical prediction that it should flow to poorer capital-scarce countries. In an influential study, Alfaro, Kalemli-Ozcan, and Volosovych (AKV) argue that cross-country variation in institutional quality can fully explain the Paradox, contending that if institutional quality is included in regression models explaining international capital inflows, a country’s level of economic development is no longer statistically significant. We replicate AKV’s results using their cross-sectional IFS capital flow data. Motivated by the importance of conducting inference in statistically adequate models, we focus on misspecification testing of alternative functional forms of their empirical model of capital flows. We show that their resolution of the Paradox relies on inference in a misspecified model. In models that do not fail basic misspecification tests, even though institutional quality is a significant determinant of capital inflows, a country’s level of economic development also remains a significant predictor. The same conclusions are reached using an extended dataset covering more recent IFS international capital flow data, first-differenced capital stock data and additional controls.     

Innovation ambidexterity of open firms. The role of internal relational social capital

The success of the open innovation (OI) paradigm is still debated and literature is searching for its determinants. Although firms’ internal social context is crucial to explain the success or failure of OI practices, such context is still poorly investigated. The aim of the paper is to analyse whether internal social capital (SC), intended as employees’ propensity to interact and work in groups in order to solve innovation issues, mediates the relationship between OI practices and innovation ambidexterity (IA). Results, based on a survey research developed in Finland, Italy and Sweden, suggest that collaborations with different typologies of partners (scientific and business) achieve good results in terms of IA, through the partial mediation of the internal SC.     

社会资本视角下的中国金融发展与经济增长关系——基于1997-2008年省际面板数据研究

本文分析了社会资本与金融发展对经济增长的资本积累和技术创新效应,并利用我国31个省（市）1997-2008的面板数据,对社会资本、金融发展与经济增长的关系进行了实证研究。结论表明：社会资本对我国经济增长具有明显的促进作用,而金融发展却阻碍了经济的发展,社会资本与金融发展的互动效应对经济增长起着推动作用。最后本文从政府应注重投资社会资本的角度提出了相关的政策建议。     

Religion and Economic Development in History: Institutions and the Role of Religious Networks

I argue that the role of religion on economic performance is mainly through the networks of small religious groups. These groups form social networks that enable individuals to conduct non-formal contract enforcement mechanisms. I analyze the effects of religions on societies, focusing mainly on the institutional aspects that affect the capabilities of creating social capital via networks which enhance cooperation and decrease transaction costs. Since the interaction between institutions and organizations is expected to shape the institutional evolution and economic performance of an economy, religions that have a communal form of organization rather than a vertical (hierarchical) structure, thus allowing many different denominational sub-communities within a society, can be more beneficiary for development and growth. Such institutions may not only provide allocative and production efficiency, but also adaptive efficiency that is a key to long-run growth. However, these effects may turn negative depending on these institutions’ role in causing group hostility and exclusion.     

专用社会资本外部性视阈下的家族企业治理模式

挖掘家族企业的制度内核,破解其制度缺陷,是确定家族企业治理模式的前提。本文在交易成本理论的平台上,通过对家族社会资本专用性属性及其外部性效应的解读,发现家族企业的制度优势来自于对家族社会资本的汲取,而其制度障碍体现为家族社会资本的负的外部性。这个负的外部性在企业范围小于专用社会资本范围时产生。所以,家族企业需要随着发展,扩大专用的家族社会资本的范围。基于此,本文提炼了泛家族化治理、差序家族化治理、网络家族化治理三种模式。     

社会资本在农村集体经济改革中的演变与构建

狭义上的社会资本指网络关系、社会规范以及信任程度,中国农村集体经济在这些方面具有不同于西方国家的特点。论文分析了在中国改革开放这一制度变迁的过程中社会资本发生变化的机理及其对农村集体经济的影响。根据理论研究提出应重构农村集体经济社会资本,这对于建设和谐社会、实现经济转型和提高农民收入等具有重意义。政策含义是：培育农村经济中介和社会中介组织,建立发挥合作经济的作用,明确供销社和信用社合作性质,同时,基层政府和社区的互动应该有边界。     

Cooperatives and happiness. Cross-country evidence on the role of relational capital

Why is the share of happy people higher in some countries than in their equally developed neighbours? We conjecture that the apparent contradiction might depend on a country’s endowment of relational capital, which we proxy empirically with the extent of cooperativeness. In particular, within the black box of social capital, we consider relational capital as the outcome of the civil economy paradigm and use cooperativeness as the macro and objective proxy of long term face-to-face interaction. Compiling an index of the importance of the cooperative sector, we test whether more cooperativeness associates with more happiness controlling for countries’ HDI and other control variables. Checking for endogeneity, using various country samples, and through different regression methods we find support for our hypothesis. This suggests that, indeed, an institutionalized cooperative culture can promote happiness.     

The Policy Ramifications of Capital as Ideas

In 1987, Baldwin Ranson wrote about capital and technology in economic growth. Ranson argued that capital should be defined as intangible ideas and technology that are not subject to supply and demand constraints. Thorstein Veblen (1908, 518) described his conception of capital as being “found in possession of something in the way of a body of technological knowledge, – knowledge serviceable and requisite to the quest of a livelihood.” John R. Commons (1934, 662) wrote in a similar vein that “capital is not an accumulation of past products of stored-up labor – these are transitory and aimless – capital is a going plant of industrial knowledge and experience.” More recently, Cesar Hidalgo (2015) and Paul Romer (1990, 1994) have also written about the idea of capital as ideas and the key to economic growth. Hidalgo (2015, 179) states that “the growth of information in the economy, which is ultimately the essence of economic growth, results from the coevolution of our species’ collective computation capacity.” The first section of this article explores the linkages between the older generation and more recent thinkers on the intersection of capital as technology and ideas. The second section explores the policy ramifications of this conceptualization of capital. Romer argues that temporary monopolies are needed to encourage investment in innovation. According to both Veblen and Ranson, these rules do not allow for the full social value of ideas to be utilized. The second part of this article also explores these differences using A. Allan Schmid’s situation-structure-performance (SSP) model.     

Corporate valuation and social capital: a cross-country analysis

This article analyses the influence of social capital on corporate valuation for a sample of 55 countries over the period 1995–2012. The results suggest that social capital is an important determinant of corporate valuation. Interpersonal trust and civic cooperation enhance corporate valuation, even though other institutional and legal characteristics are considered. Furthermore, our results reveal that corporate valuation increases with the GDP annual growth rate, legal enforcement and the protection of shareholders’ rights, but that it is negatively affected by corruption and protection of creditors’ rights. We also obtain some evidence suggesting that civic cooperation has a greater influence over corporate valuation in poorer countries.     

Social Capital and the Shadow Economy

Viewed in a wider context of paid and unpaid informal economic activities, the shadow economy highlights the little recognized ambivalence of social capital as both potentially positive and negative in outcomes for different groups in the economy. Using a concept of social capital as access to durable networks of actual and virtual resources, as claimed by Pierre Bourdieu, I examine the shadow economy as a source of both resilience and repression, intimately connected to the formal economy and tied to a neo-liberal agenda. I draw from review activities I have previously conducted on the informal economy in disadvantaged neighborhoods and from research on social capital in the economy in a European context.     

Social capital in community level environmental governance: A critique

Social capital is often claimed to facilitate collective action regarding the management of complex environmental goods and services. However, there is little systematic analysis in the literature that explains the way social capital aids in fostering collective action. The paper integrates ideas from institutional ecological economics, sociology and anthropology to argue that power relations, involving struggle and resistance, should be acknowledged as they affect collective action. We address the question of why social capital should not be straightforwardly associated positively with common property resource management. To unravel the complexity of the links between social capital, collective action and common property resource management, the concepts of common knowledge and symbolic power are introduced.     

创业者的人力资本和社会资本对创业过程的影响

创业者的人力资本和社会资本在新企业的创建和成长中起着至关重要的作用。本文探讨了创业者人力资本和社会资本的构成及其关系,就它们对机会识别、新企业创建和成长的不同阶段的影响进行了评述和研究,总结了其中的机制,并指出,在创业过程中创业者的人力资本和社会资本会互相影响,不断形成资本的积累和增值,进而促进或抑制新企业的成长绩效。在此基础上,提出了基于创业者人力资本和社会资本的创业过程整体研究框架。     

制度环境约束下的企业绩效分析——基于中国东北地区企业的实证研究

针对中国转型时期的经济增长之谜,现有研究分别基于社会关系和分权制度进行探讨。本文综合上述两种观点,将社会关系和正式制度微观化为企业的关系资本和制度资本,并进一步把关系资本细分为商业关系资本和政治关系资本,从而将宏观制度环境纳入到微观企业绩效的分析框架中。实证研究采用基于残差正态分布的有序选择模型对东北地区313家企业进行回归分析,我们发现:商业关系资本与绩效水平和绩效增长均显著正相关;政治关系资本与绩效增长呈倒U型曲线关系;制度资本与绩效水平呈二次曲线关系,而其与商业关系资本的综合效应能够显著提升企业绩效水平,促进绩效增长。     

Social transfers and conditionalities under different regime types

This paper examines the implications of political factors for social policy choices. Specifically, we explore the link between regime type and adoption of unconditional transfers versus transfers conditioned on beneficiaries’ investments in human capital. Due to the direct nature of benefits, unconditional transfers are more likely to be used to buy off opposition and prevent social unrest. As transfers that are conditioned on education and health pay off only in a relatively distant future, they are rarely initiated for political motives and rather defined by interests of long-term development and human capital accumulation. Using the new dataset on Non-Contributory Social Transfer Programs (NSTP) in developing countries, we find that transfers are indeed chosen so as to be unconditional under less democratic regimes. There is some evidence that conditional transfers are more likely to be adopted in democracies. In particular, democracies tend to increase the number of conditional schemes once any social transfer program is introduced.     

Finance Is Not the Economy: Reviving the Conceptual Distinction

Conflation of real capital with finance capital is at the heart of current misunderstandings of economic crisis and recession. We ground this distinction in the classical analysis of rent and the difference between productive and unproductive credit. We then apply it to current conditions, in which household credit — especially mortgage credit — is the premier form of unproductive credit.

This is supported by an institutional analysis of postwar U.S. development and a review of quantitative empirical research across many countries. Finally, we discuss contemporary consequences of the financial sector’s malformation and overdevelopment.     

社会资本:融入企业经济学分析框架的思考

社会资本作为第三种资本形式要融入企业经济学的分析框架,不仅应给出它的确切含义,还应区别它与人力资本及其组织资本之间的关系,而且更为重要的是应解决它从哪里分析、在那里运行的问题。笔者认为,企业的本质是团队生产,企业的团队生产不仅放大了对物质资本的利用,形成和累积了团队成员的个人型人力资本,而且还创造出了不能分解到个人身上的团队型人力资本。组织资本与个人型人力资本相关,社会资本则与团队型人力资本相联系。它们的相互作用共同构成了企业的团队生产方式及其效率来源。     

风险投资的发展策略分析——资本能量的视野

资本之所以具有不同的表现形态,完全是由资本所有者或持有人不同的性格特质所然,资本的本质是人对财富追求与保存方式的不同偏好,所代表的是人与人之间的相互关联、影响甚至制约的方式和能力。资本的能量状态可大体反映出资本主体（所有者或持有人）的活跃程度及其对社会经济的辐射度与影响力,资本能量的高低状态由资本的收益预期、资本的风险耐受和资本的流动偏好决定。从窖藏资本到储蓄资本及至风险资本等,随着资本能量的递进攀升,资本的机会成本逐渐减小,资本效率则不断提高,资本对社会经济的影响也更加扩散与分化。风险资本是一种优质高能资本,它不仅具有将这种资本能量向社会经济体中最具潜力群体释放的功能,而且能够整合低能资本并将其转化为高能资本。风险投资是高技术产业的助推器与孵化器,孕育和催生了新经济的时代大潮。我国风险投资业的发展必须从风险投资能量的影响因素入手,研究其能量激活策略。