In the last 20 years, social capital, has been evoked in several field of social science research and used to explain a vast range of phenomena: political participation, institution performance, corruption, economic success of countries and so on. Unfortunately, dealing with social capital at a...

The paper investigates whether social capital can affect the standard living of the Italian households based on poverty and social exclusion. The analysis is developed at the regional level through cross-sections based in the year 2002 and in the year 2003. The indices of social capital that we...

In this paper, we empirically investigate a channel through which social capital may improve economic wellbeing and the functioning of institutions: political accountability. The main idea is that voters who share norms of generalized morality demand higher standards of behavior on their elected...

Financial contracts represent an exchange of financial resources today, such as money, for a promise to return more financial resources tomorrow. The aim of the paper is to test whether cheating or respecting a promise, in particular a “financial one”, is also a matter of community norms in...

We develop an endogenous growth model to simulate the long-term impact of Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) on the persistent North-South productivity gap. Our model underscores public investment as a catalyst for sustained economic growth and highlights the reliance of local...