In a canonical model of collective action, individual contribution to collective action is negatively correlated with group size. Empirical evidence on the group size effect has been mixed, partly due to heterogeneities in group activities. In this paper, we first construct a simple general...

Poor maintenance of water supply systems is a critical issue in sub-Saharan Africa. Using survey data on users of motorized piped water supply systems in rural southern Senegal, this paper examines what motivates resource users to contribute financially to the management of water supply system...

Studies of commons management make it clear that collective action for resource management is a highly complex process in which the impact of different conditions often will vary according to physical and socio-economic contexts. This paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of this...

Since early 2000, a type of group-based informal irrigation for irrigating a very small area – less than two hectares on average, has seen widespread adoption among Malawian farmers. The technology, called “temporary” irrigation, uses farmers’ own labor and locally available materials...

While social capital in general has been recognized as essential for economic activities, its accumulation mechanisms are largely unexplored. How does people’s trust toward others, one of the core dimensions of social capital, emerge? To shed new light on this largely unanswered question, we...

Social capital is thought to have both positive and negative aspects. This paper examines how social capital has worked in the process of recovery and reconstruction in Kobe since the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake. The paper focuses on the tertiary sector of Kobe because since the earthquake...

This study tests alternative hypotheses concerning the motivations behind the participation by rural households in community work. Using unique data from natural and field experiments in southern Sri Lanka, where irrigated fields have been allocated to farmers by government lottery, we compare...

In this paper, we investigate the role of a School Management Committee (COGES) in facili- tating social capital among community members and teachers. We employ unique data from Burkina Faso, where the COGES project was recently introduced. To determine the individual level of social capital of...

This paper investigates the effect of social capital between irrigation canal head-enders and tail-enders on their water allocation problem. Although social capital is considered to be an instrument for common pool resource management, a consensus has not been reached on its effect among...