We set up a theoretical framework to analyze the possible role of economic growth and technical progress in the erosion of social capital. Under certain parameters, the relationship between technical progress and social capital can take the shape of an inverted U curve. We show the circumstances...

We develop a dynamic model to analyze the sources and the evolution of social participation and social capital in a growing economy characterized by exogenous technical progress. Starting from the assumption that the well-being of agents basically depends on material and relational goods, we...

Empirical studies have documented a decline in indicators of social participation in the last decades. The responsibility of social disengagement has been often attributed to pervasive busyness and the rising pressure of time. In this paper we argue that computer-mediated interaction, and...

The objective of this paper is to theoretically analyze how human interaction may evolve in a world characterized by the explosion of online networking and other Web-mediated ways of building and nurturing relationships. The analysis shows that online networking yields a storage mechanism...

In this study, we develop an evolutionary game model to analyse how human relations evolve in a context characterised by declining face-to-face interactions and growing online social participation. Our results suggest that online networks may constitute a coping response allowing individuals to...

This paper proposes an evolutionary framework to explore the dynamics of social interaction in an environment characterized by online networking and increasing pressure on time. The model shows how time pressure encourages the choice to develop social interactions also through online networking...

This paper addresses two hot topics of the contemporary debate, social capital and economic growth. Our theoretical analysis sheds light on decisive but so far neglected issues: how does social capital accumulate over time? Which is the relationship between social capital, technical progress and...

This study analyses the dynamics of a two-dimensional overlapping generations economy with endogenous labour supply à la Reichlin (1986) and aspirations, i.e. effective consumption by individuals of the current generation depends on the standard of living (based on consumption experience) of...

This paper analyses the dynamics of a two-dimensional overlapping generations model with young and old age labour supply. It is shown that the public provision of health investments, which, in turn, affects the demand for material consumption, may represent a source of local indeterminacy,...