Previous empirical work on the effects of social capital on measures of environmental performance across countries has been limited by data on social capital only being available for a relatively small number of countries. This article makes use of a new data set measuring different dimensions of social capital for a much larger number of countries to analyze the relationship between social capital and the environment across countries. There is evidence that some aspects of social capital are associated with better environmental performance.
Andersen, S., Bulte, E., Gneezy, U., & List, J.A. ( 2008). Do women supply more public goods than men? Preliminary experimental evidence from matrilineal and patriarchal societies. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 98, 376-381.
2.
Cramb, R.A. ( 2005). Social capital and soil conservation: Evidence from the Philippines. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics,49, 211-226.
3.
Croson, R., & Gneezy, U. ( 2009). Gender differences in preferences. Journal of Economic Literature, 47, 448-474.
4.
Fredriksson, P.G., Neumayer, E., Damania, R., & Gates, S. ( 2005). Environmentalism, democracy, and pollution control. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management,49, 343-365.
5.
Fredriksson, P.G., & Wollscheid, J.R. (2007). Democratic institutions versus autocratic regimes: The case of environmental policy. Public Choice,130, 381-393.
6.
Gebremedhin, B., Pender, J., & Tesfay, G. ( 2003). Community natural resource management: The case of woodlots in Northern Ethiopia. Environment and Development Economics ,8, 129-148.
7.
Grafton, R.Q., & Knowles, S. ( 2004). Social capital and national environmental performance: A cross-sectional analysis. Journal of Environment and Development ,13, 336-370.
8.
Inglehart, R.Aguir, C., Ahmad, A.H., Aliev, A., Alishauskiene, R.Andreyenkov, V., ... Zulehner, P. ( 2000). World values surveys and European values surveys, 1981-84, 1990-93, and 1995-1997. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.
9.
International Institute of Social Studies. ( 2011). Indices of Social Development. Available at www.indsocdev.org/home.html
10.
Isham, J. ( 2002). Can investments in social capital improve local development and environmental outcomes? A cost-benefit framework to assess the policy options. In J. Isham, T. Kelly, & S. Ramaswamy (Eds.), Social capital and economic development: Well-being in developing countries (pp. 159-175). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
11.
Isham, J., Kelly, T., & Ramaswamy, S. ( 2002). Social capital and well-being in developing countries: An introduction. In J. Isham, T. Kelly, & S. Ramaswamy (Eds.), Social capital and economic development: Well-being in developing countries (pp. 3-17). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
12.
Katz, E.G. ( 2000). Social capital and natural capital: A comparative analysis of land tenure and natural resource management in Guatemala. Land Economics,76(1), 114-132.
13.
Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A., & Mastruzzi, M. ( 2007). Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996-2006 (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 4280). Washington, DC: World Bank.
14.
Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A., & Ziodo-Lobatόn, P. (1999). Aggregating Government Indicators (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 2195). Washington, DC: World Bank.
15.
Knack, S., & Keefer, P. ( 1997). Does social capital have an economic payoff? A cross-country investigation. Quarterly Journal of Economics,112, 1251-1288.
16.
Lambsdorff, J.G. ( 2006, October). The methodology of the Corruptions Perceptions Index 2006. Retrieved from http://www.icgg.org/downloads/CPI_2006_Methodology.pdf
17.
Midlarsky, M.I. ( 1998). Democracy and the environment: An empirical assessment . Journal of Peace Research,35, 341-361.
18.
Neumayer, E. ( 2002). Do democracies exhibit stronger international environmental commitment? A cross-country analysis. Journal of Peace Research ,39, 139-164.
19.
Ostrom, E. ( 1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
20.
Putnam, R.D., Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R.Y. ( 1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
21.
Putnam, R.D. ( 2007). E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and community in the twenty-first century. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30, 137-174.
22.
Scruggs, L.A. ( 1999). Institutions and environmental performance in seventeen Western democracies. British Journal of Political Science , 29, 1-31.
23.
Stern, N., Peters, S., Bakhshi, V., Bowen, A., Cameron, C., Catovsky, S., . . . Zenghelis, D. ( 2006). Stern review: The economics of climate change. London, UK: HM Treasury.
24.
Torras, M., & Boyce, J.K. ( 1998). Income, inequality, and pollution: A reassessment of the environmental Kuznets curve. Ecological Economics,25, 147-160.
25.
Westermann, O., Ashby, J., & Pretty, P. ( 2005). Gender and social capital: The importance of gender differences for the maturity and effectiveness of natural resource management groups. World Development,33, 1783-1799.
26.
White, H. ( 1980). A heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity. Econometrica, 48, 817-838.
27.
Williamson, O.E. ( 2000). The new institutional economics: Taking stock, looking ahead. Journal of Economic Literature,38, 595-613.
