This research investigates the role of social capital and government intervention in explaining the differences of innovation output and economic growth for regions of the European Union from 1990-2002. Using several measures of social capital and innovation, and the European Union’s Objective...

This paper investigates the interplay between social capital, innovation and economic growth in the European Union. We identify innovation as an important mechanism that transforms social capital into economic growth. In an empirical investigation of 102 European regions in the period 1990-2002,...

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...

This working paper analyzes the role of different elements of social capital in economic growth for a sample of 85 European regions during the period 1995-2008. Despite the remarkable progress that social capital and European regional economic growth literatures have experienced over the last...

The transition of the »Old Communist« countries of East and Central Europe has been disappointingly slow given the amount of physical and human capital available at the start of the <p> transition. We argue that this slowness is caused by the lack of social capital, which is an <p> important factor...</p></p>

Social capital increases efficiency by reducing transaction costs, creating new forms of information exchange and by inducing change in individual attitudes. How Royal Society of London, the Media and the Private Prosecution Societies functioned in the 17th and 18th century Britain display...

I examine the causal relation between social capital and corruption. A simple model illustrates potential mechanisms and yields testable implications, which I estimate in a sample of European countries. The estimated effect of social capital on corruption is found to be robust to the inclusion...