Events

Abstract:  This paper investigates the historical determinants of social capital in Italy, widely seen at the root of the North-South divide. By focusing on the rural economic structure of Italy during the liberal age (1861-1911) and using several measures of social capital in the present-day, I find that areas that with a higher share of short-term contracts in agriculture exhibit lower civic capital today. The results are robust to the inclusion of a set of control variables. IV estimates using the presence of malaria as a source of exogenous variation rule out further concerns regarding the presence of potential endogeneity. I carry out also a spatial analysis to account for spillover effects, and the share of short-term contracts still retains its signi cance. Therefore, the effect is robust even after controlling for the fact that short-term leases were not randomly determined. Finally, I explore the role of the industrial districts as a mechanism to transmit the cultural trait of cooperation through time. As they took shape where short-term contracts were relatively rare, I find a positive association between municipalities exhibiting high civic capital and those being part of an industrial district.

The Graduate Seminars in Economics and Social History series for Michaelmas Term 2020 is convened by Luigi Dante Gaviano, Victoria Gierok and Roger Lewis.  For more information in the series this term, please email Victoria Gierok.