African immigrants in the United States (U.S.) experience immense challenges in the form of poverty, unemployment, and underemployment. Limited English language proficiency often restricts African immigrants to low-paying, unskilled positions. Ethnic entrepreneurship in the form of small-scale...

We study the effects of informal labor sharing arrangements and other social interactions on farmers' productivity in a developing country context, testing whether these types of social and work interactions lead to productivity gains through learning, synergy, or both. Using a rich panel data...

Rural households in developing countries adopt diversification of income sources as a common strategy to stabilize their income throughout the year. We view social networks as an important factor that influences diversification activities. Social interactions may help households to gain ideas,...

This study investigates whether peers are a contributing factor in childhood body-weight outcomes. Using an instrumental variables method on exogenously assigned peers, we find that the weight of peers within the same grade and school significantly impacts body mass index (BMI) z-score of an...

Social networks play an important role in generating learning externalities that can drive the diffusion of innovative, and potentially poverty-reducing, technologies. This is particularly the case in developing countries where rural education, extension, and agricultural information services...

An extensive economics and regional science literature has discussed the importance of social capital for economic growth and development. Yet, what social capital is and how it is formed are elusive issues, which require further investigation. Here, we refer to social capital in terms of civic...

Increased attention has recently been given to technical efficiency of small-scale irrigation to achieve food security and increase agricultural development. In this paper, the authors classify irrigation supply management methods as cooperative or non-cooperative, introduce social capital by...

The benefits from increased levels of social capital have been shown to manifest themselves in ways that can increase the efficiency of the use and regulation of natural resources, as well as increase the resiliency of resource dependent communities against fluctuations in abundance. While the...

We advance a case for an inclusion of social capital in the environmental Kuznets curve analysis using highly disaggregated data on water pollution in Louisiana. A social capital index and other variables are used in parametric and spatial panel regression models to explain water pollution dynamics.

While social capital is becoming mainstreamed in social science, much remains to be done to better understand its' nature. This is especially true for "What motivates the investment in social capital, and what affects the level of social capital?" An earlier paper by Robison, Schmid and Siles (...