This paper carries out an exploratory investigation into the effect of various types of social interaction on health in Italy. After controlling for household income, education, work status and a number of socio-demographic variables, we find that the frequency of meetings with friends is...

Which kind of network fosters the diffusion of development-oriented trust? This paper carries out an empirical investigation into the causal relationships connecting four types of social networks (i.e. bonding, bridging, linking, and corporate), and different forms of trust (knowledge-based...

A Japanese General Social Survey is used to re-examine how voluntary giving is associated with inequality aversion, and how the relationship differs between high- and low-income groups. This paper also investigates how social capital influences that relationship. The key findings are that (1)...

Kahn (2005) found that ethnic heterogeneity reduces the number of deaths caused by natural disasters, a finding that is contrary to theoretical predictions. This paper casts doubt on this finding and conducts a re-estimation. To control for measurement problems, I have used not only an ethnic...

Using prefecture level data of Japan for the years 1979 and 1996, I explore the extent to which inequality, age heterogeneity, and social capital have an effect upon interpersonal trust. The major finding is that inequality is associated with low trust, while generational heterogeneity is...

This paper explores how the rate of home-ownership is related to the formation of social capital using panel data from Japan during the period 19862006. I have used Dynamic Panel estimation to control unobserved prefecture-specific fixed effects and an endogeneity bias. I have found...

Using prefecture level data of Japan for the years 1979 and 1996, I explore the extent to which inequality, age heterogeneity, and social capital have an effect upon interpersonal trust. The major finding is that inequality is associated with low trust, while generational heterogeneity is...

The empirical results through a fixed effects regression model show that the initial level of productivity has a negative effect on the contribution of efficiency to productivity growth, which implies that technological catch-up has done much to cause economic convergence among countries....

The empirical results through a fixed effects regression model show that the initial level of productivity has a negative effect on the contribution of efficiency to productivity growth, which implies that technological catch-up has done much to cause economic convergence among countries....