Human capital, social capital and scientific research in Europe: an application of linear hierarchical models

The theory of human capital is one way to explain individual decisions to produce scientific research. However, this theory, even if it reckons the importance of time in science, is too short for explaining the existing diversity of scientific output. The present paper introduces the social capital of Bourdieu (1980), Coleman (1988) and Putnam (1995) as a necessary complement to explain the creation of scientific human capital. This paper connects these two concepts by means of a hierarchical econometric model which makes the distinction between the individual level (human capital) and the cluster level of departments (social capital). The paper shows how a collection of variables can be built from a bibliographic data base indicating both individual behaviour including mobility and collective characteristics of the department housing individual researchers. The two level hierarchical model is estimated on fourteen European countries using bibliometric data in the fields of economics.