Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States
Social capital - in the form of general trust and strong civi norms that call for cooperation when large-scale collective action is needed - can improve government performance in three ways: 1) It can broaden government accountability, making gover...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/12/828289/social-capital-quality-government-evidence-states http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19750 |
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okr-10986-197502021-04-23T14:03:44Z Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States Knack, Stephen CITIZENS CITIZENSHIP CIVIC CULTURE CLIENT SATISFACTION CLINICS COMMUNITIES COMPETITION POLICY CONSENSUS DATA COLLECTION DEBT DECISION MAKERS DECISION MAKING DEMOCRACY DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES DEPENDENT VARIABLE DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIC ACTIVITY ECONOMIC GROWTH ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE ECONOMIES OF SCALE EQUATIONS EXPENDITURE EXPENDITURES FINANCIAL AUDITS FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT FISCAL FISCAL CRISES FORECASTS FUTURE RESEARCH GINI COEFFICIENT GOOD GOVERNANCE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE GOVERNMENT TRUST GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTABILITY HUMAN RESOURCE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT HUMAN RESOURCE POLICIES HUMAN RESOURCES INEFFICIENCY LEGISLATORS LEGISLATURE LIBERALISM LOBBYING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS MEASURING SOCIAL CAPITAL MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS NATIONS PER CAPITA INCOME POLICY POLICY CHANGE POLICY MAKING POLICY RESEARCH POLITICAL ELITES POLITICAL PARTICIPATION POLITICAL PARTIES POLITICIANS PUBLIC AFFAIRS PUBLIC GOOD PUBLIC INVESTMENT PUBLIC ISSUES PUBLIC OFFICIALS PUBLIC SECTOR PUBLIC SECTOR PERFORMANCE PUBLIC SERVICES RECIPROCITY REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE SCHOOL GRADUATES SOCIAL CAPITAL SOCIAL CAPITAL INDEX SOCIAL CAPITAL INDICATORS SOCIAL CLEAVAGES SOCIAL TRUST STATE FUNDING STATE GOVERNMENT STATE INCOME SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE TAXATION VOTERS VOTING Social capital - in the form of general trust and strong civi norms that call for cooperation when large-scale collective action is needed - can improve government performance in three ways: 1) It can broaden government accountability, making government responsive to citizens at large, rather than to narrow interests. 2) It can facilitate agreement where political preferences are polarized. 3) It is associated with greater innovation when policymakers face new challenges. Consistent with these arguments, Putnam (1993) has shown that regional governments in the more trusting, more civic-minded northern, and central parts of Italy provide public services more effectively than do those in the less trusting, less civic-minded southern regions. Using cross-country data, La Porta and others (1997), and Knack and Keefer (1997), obtained findings consistent with Putnam's evidence. For samples of about thirty nations (represented in the World Value Surveys), they found that societies with greater trust tended to have governments that performed significantly better. The authors used survey measures of citizen confidence in government as well as subjective indicators of bureaucratic inefficiency. The author further analyzes links between social capital and government performance, using data for the United States. In states with more social capital (as measured by an index of trust, volunteering, and census response), government performance is rated higher, based on ratings constructed by the Government Performance Project. This result is highly robust to including a variety of control variables, considering the possibility of influential outlying values, treating the performance ratings as ordinal, rather than cardinal, and correcting for possible endogeneity. 2014-08-27T16:48:58Z 2014-08-27T16:48:58Z 2000-12 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/12/828289/social-capital-quality-government-evidence-states http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19750 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 2504 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research UNITED STATES |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English en_US |
| topic |
CITIZENS CITIZENSHIP CIVIC CULTURE CLIENT SATISFACTION CLINICS COMMUNITIES COMPETITION POLICY CONSENSUS DATA COLLECTION DEBT DECISION MAKERS DECISION MAKING DEMOCRACY DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES DEPENDENT VARIABLE DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIC ACTIVITY ECONOMIC GROWTH ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE ECONOMIES OF SCALE EQUATIONS EXPENDITURE EXPENDITURES FINANCIAL AUDITS FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT FISCAL FISCAL CRISES FORECASTS FUTURE RESEARCH GINI COEFFICIENT GOOD GOVERNANCE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE GOVERNMENT TRUST GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTABILITY HUMAN RESOURCE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT HUMAN RESOURCE POLICIES HUMAN RESOURCES INEFFICIENCY LEGISLATORS LEGISLATURE LIBERALISM LOBBYING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS MEASURING SOCIAL CAPITAL MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS NATIONS PER CAPITA INCOME POLICY POLICY CHANGE POLICY MAKING POLICY RESEARCH POLITICAL ELITES POLITICAL PARTICIPATION POLITICAL PARTIES POLITICIANS PUBLIC AFFAIRS PUBLIC GOOD PUBLIC INVESTMENT PUBLIC ISSUES PUBLIC OFFICIALS PUBLIC SECTOR PUBLIC SECTOR PERFORMANCE PUBLIC SERVICES RECIPROCITY REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE SCHOOL GRADUATES SOCIAL CAPITAL SOCIAL CAPITAL INDEX SOCIAL CAPITAL INDICATORS SOCIAL CLEAVAGES SOCIAL TRUST STATE FUNDING STATE GOVERNMENT STATE INCOME SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE TAXATION VOTERS VOTING |
| spellingShingle |
CITIZENS CITIZENSHIP CIVIC CULTURE CLIENT SATISFACTION CLINICS COMMUNITIES COMPETITION POLICY CONSENSUS DATA COLLECTION DEBT DECISION MAKERS DECISION MAKING DEMOCRACY DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES DEPENDENT VARIABLE DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIC ACTIVITY ECONOMIC GROWTH ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE ECONOMIES OF SCALE EQUATIONS EXPENDITURE EXPENDITURES FINANCIAL AUDITS FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT FISCAL FISCAL CRISES FORECASTS FUTURE RESEARCH GINI COEFFICIENT GOOD GOVERNANCE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE GOVERNMENT TRUST GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTABILITY HUMAN RESOURCE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT HUMAN RESOURCE POLICIES HUMAN RESOURCES INEFFICIENCY LEGISLATORS LEGISLATURE LIBERALISM LOBBYING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS MEASURING SOCIAL CAPITAL MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS NATIONS PER CAPITA INCOME POLICY POLICY CHANGE POLICY MAKING POLICY RESEARCH POLITICAL ELITES POLITICAL PARTICIPATION POLITICAL PARTIES POLITICIANS PUBLIC AFFAIRS PUBLIC GOOD PUBLIC INVESTMENT PUBLIC ISSUES PUBLIC OFFICIALS PUBLIC SECTOR PUBLIC SECTOR PERFORMANCE PUBLIC SERVICES RECIPROCITY REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE SCHOOL GRADUATES SOCIAL CAPITAL SOCIAL CAPITAL INDEX SOCIAL CAPITAL INDICATORS SOCIAL CLEAVAGES SOCIAL TRUST STATE FUNDING STATE GOVERNMENT STATE INCOME SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE TAXATION VOTERS VOTING Knack, Stephen Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States |
| geographic_facet |
UNITED STATES |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 2504 |
| description |
Social capital - in the form of general
trust and strong civi norms that call for cooperation when
large-scale collective action is needed - can improve
government performance in three ways: 1) It can broaden
government accountability, making government responsive to
citizens at large, rather than to narrow interests. 2) It
can facilitate agreement where political preferences are
polarized. 3) It is associated with greater innovation when
policymakers face new challenges. Consistent with these
arguments, Putnam (1993) has shown that regional governments
in the more trusting, more civic-minded northern, and
central parts of Italy provide public services more
effectively than do those in the less trusting, less
civic-minded southern regions. Using cross-country data, La
Porta and others (1997), and Knack and Keefer (1997),
obtained findings consistent with Putnam's evidence.
For samples of about thirty nations (represented in the
World Value Surveys), they found that societies with greater
trust tended to have governments that performed
significantly better. The authors used survey measures of
citizen confidence in government as well as subjective
indicators of bureaucratic inefficiency. The author further
analyzes links between social capital and government
performance, using data for the United States. In states
with more social capital (as measured by an index of trust,
volunteering, and census response), government performance
is rated higher, based on ratings constructed by the
Government Performance Project. This result is highly robust
to including a variety of control variables, considering the
possibility of influential outlying values, treating the
performance ratings as ordinal, rather than cardinal, and
correcting for possible endogeneity. |
| format |
Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper |
| author |
Knack, Stephen |
| author_facet |
Knack, Stephen |
| author_sort |
Knack, Stephen |
| title |
Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States |
| title_short |
Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States |
| title_full |
Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States |
| title_fullStr |
Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Social Capital and the Quality of Government : Evidence from the United States |
| title_sort |
social capital and the quality of government : evidence from the united states |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2014 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/12/828289/social-capital-quality-government-evidence-states http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19750 |
| _version_ |
1764440539037433856 |