In this paper we study how and to what extend (i) individual working conditions (e.g. peers, working atmosphere, work contract incentives, wage satisfaction), (ii) institutions (e.g. technology transfer offices, patent exploitation agencies, chair in entrepreneurship or awards for academic...

This study analyses institutional, job-related, and individual antecedents of entrepreneurial activi-ties from a longitudinal perspective. We take a holistic look at the start-up process incorporating entrepreneurial gestation activities (nascent entrepreneurship) and finally business creation...

We present new evidence on the influence of income inequality on generalized trust. Using individual panel data from Swedish counties together with an instrumental variable strategy we find that differences in disposable income, and especially differences among people in the bottom half of the...

We conduct an extensive robustness analysis of the relationship between trust and growth for a later time period (the 1990s) and with a bigger sample (63 countries) than previous studies. In addition to robustness tests that focus on model uncertainty, we use Least Trimmed Squares, a robust...

We present new evidence on how generalized trust is formed. Unlike previous studies, we look at the explanatory power of economic institutions, we use newer data, we incorporate more countries, and we use instrumental variables to handle the causality problem. A central result is that legal...

This paper argues that welfare programs are linked with the destruction of social capital, as measured by interpersonal trust in laboratory games. The paper employs experimental data for representative samples of individuals in four Latin American capital cities (Bogota, Lima, Montevideo, and...

Using three waves of survey data from fishing villages in Aceh, Indonesia for 2005-2009, we examine the determinants of local volunteer labor after the tsunami. Pre-existing social capital and the form of aid delivery (but not trauma) strongly affect village volunteerism initially, but these...

Remittances from migrants in the United States play a major role in the Mexican economy. This paper analyzes the role that different types of social capital play in the remittances decisions of Mexican migrants. Both the decision to remit and the decision on how much to remit are analyzed. The...

In this paper, we argue that an important function fulfilled by intermediaries is to facilitate trust by enabling social pressure towards the enforcement of informal agreements. To that end, we develop a new model that uses network theory to show that intermediaries who have exclusivity over a...

Italy makes for a very interesting case study of the impact of social variables on economic performance. Across its provinces, differences in social and cultural attitudes seem associated to large differences in economic development. We analyze the importance of some social variables on...