Social Capital and Political Accountability

54 Pages Posted: 9 Jun 2010 Last revised: 14 Jul 2011

See all articles by Tommaso Nannicini

Tommaso Nannicini

Bocconi University - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Andrea Stella

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Guido Tabellini

Bocconi University - Department of Economics; Bocconi University - IGIER - Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research; Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research (CESifo)

Ugo antonio Troiano

University of California, Riverside (UCR)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 1, 2010

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate a channel through which social (or civic) capital may improve economic wellbeing and the functioning of institutions: political accountability. The main idea is that voters who share values and beliefs that foster cooperation are more likely to base their vote on criteria of social welfare rather than narrow personal interest. We frame this intuition into a simple model of political accountability with retrospective voting and heterogeneous endowments of civic attitudes. We then take this conjecture to the data using information on the Italian members of Parliament in the postwar period (1948–2001). The empirical evidence shows that the electoral punishment of political misbehavior is considerably larger in electoral districts with high social capital, where political misbehavior refers to receiving a request of criminal prosecution or shirking in parliamentary activity, and social capital is measured by blood donation (or by non-profit organizations and electoral turnout). Accordingly, political misbehaviors are less frequent in electoral districts where civic attitudes are widespread.

Keywords: Social Capital, Culture, Political Agency

JEL Classification: D72, D73, Z10

Suggested Citation

Nannicini, Tommaso and Stella, Andrea and Tabellini, Guido and Troiano, Ugo antonio, Social Capital and Political Accountability (December 1, 2010). FEEM Working Paper No. 58.2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1622136 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1622136

Tommaso Nannicini

Bocconi University - Department of Economics ( email )

Via Gobbi 5
Milan, 20136
Italy

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Andrea Stella

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ( email )

20th Street and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20551
United States

Guido Tabellini (Contact Author)

Bocconi University - Department of Economics ( email )

Via Gobbi 5
Milan, 20136
Italy

Bocconi University - IGIER - Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research ( email )

Via Roentgen 1
Milan, 20136
Italy

Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research (CESifo)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.CESifo.de

Ugo antonio Troiano

University of California, Riverside (UCR) ( email )

900 University Avenue
Riverside, CA CA 92521
United States

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