Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/113756 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 5423
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Economic growth is propelled in part by the accumulation of different kinds of capital, including social capital in its several guises. This paper considers the interplay between financial crises and various aspects of social capital which, if it is allowed to depreciate, can undermine economic prosperity and growth and possibly also contribute to crises. Specifically, the paper offers some empirical comparisons between the experience of the United States in the 1920s and in the 1990s until 2008 with the experience of Sweden and Iceland. The working hypothesis is that social capital decay can be a precursor as well as consequence of slow economic growth and of financial crises. Iceland is a case in point. An increasingly unfair distribution of income and wealth is likely to exacerbate the problem.
Subjects: 
social capital
inequality
corruption
trust
financial crises
JEL: 
D63
D73
G01
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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