The idea of social capital has enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence in both the theoretical and applied social science literature over the last decade. While lively debate has accompanied that journey, thereby helping to advance our thinking and to clarify areas of agreement and disagreement,...

August 1999 - Whatever their nature, interventions to reduce poverty should be designed not only to have an immediate impact on poverty, but also to foster a rich network of cross-cutting ties within society and between society's formal and informal institutions. Using the lens of social capital...

Matching a measure of social capital with data on household income in certain rural villages in Tanzania shows that social capital is indeed both capital (in that it raises incomes) and social (in that household incomes depend on village, not just household, social capital).Narayan and Pritchett...