We investigate the relationship between social capital and the decision to flee after a fatal road accident. This event is unplanned, and the decision is taken under great emotional distress and time pressure, thus providing a test of whether social capital matters for behaviour in extreme...

This paper investigates the relation between social capital and crime. The analysis contributes to explaining why crime is so heterogeneous across space. By employing current and historical data for Dutch municipalities and by providing novel indicators to measure social capital, we find a link...

In Europe differences among countries in the overall change in happiness since the early 1980s have been due chiefly to the generosity of welfare state programs— increasing happiness going with increasing generosity and declining happiness with declining generosity. This is the principal...

Labor market integration raises welfare in the absence of distortions. This paper examines labor and goods market integration in a general equilibrium model with social capital. The findings are: i) labor market integration has an ambiguous impact on welfare, and raises it if the goods produced...

We use New Zealand school board of trustees data to examine whether schools where parents have high rates of homeownership experience high parental voting turnout in elections. We also investigate whether homeownership influences the probability that a school board proceeds to election,...

This paper presents a review of empirical methods used to assess the behavioral, economic, and political outcomes of Internet and social media usage. Instead of merely surveying the various impacts of the Internet, we examine the methods adopted to identify these impacts. We describe two main...

In this paper, we present evidence from quantitative research over the last decade on how the social capital of individuals in Aotearoa New Zealand is associated with birthplace and, for migrants, years since migration. We also consider the effects of spatial sorting and ethnic diversity on...

This paper analyzes data for a random sample drawn from the Dutch population who reveal their propensity to invest and reward investments in building up social capital by means of an economic experiment. We find substantial heterogeneity in the propensity to invest and in the propensity to...