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AER - June 2004

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American Economic Review

Vol. 94, No. 3, June 2004


The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development
Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales

Article Citation
Guiso, Luigi, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales. 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development." American Economic Review, 94(3): 526–556.
DOI:10.1257/0002828041464498

Abstract
To identify the effect of social capital on financial development, we exploit social capital differences within Italy. In high-social-capital areas, households are more likely to use checks, invest less in cash and more in stock, have higher access to institutional credit, and make less use of informal credit. The effect of social capital is stronger where legal enforcement is weaker and among less educated people. These results are not driven by omitted environmental variables, since we show that the behavior of movers is still affected by the level of social capital of the province where they were born.

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Authors
Guiso, Luigi
Sapienza, Paola
Zingales, Luigi