TY - JOUR

T1 - Long lasting differences in civic capital

T2 - evidence from a unique immigration event in Italy

AU - Bracco, Emanuele

AU - De Paola, Maria

AU - Green, Colin

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 120, 2015 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2015.10.003

PY - 2015/12

Y1 - 2015/12

N2 - A range of evidence exists demonstrating that social capital is associated with a number of important economic outcomes such as economic growth, trade and crime. A recent literature goes further to illustrate how historical events and variation can lead to the development of differing and consequential social norms. This paper examines the related questions of how persistent initial variations in social capital are, and the extent to which immigrant groups do or do not converge to the cultural and social norms of their recipient country by examining a unique and geographically concentrated immigration event in 16th century Italy. We demonstrate that despite the substantial time since migration these communities still display different behavior consistent with higher civic capital than other comparable Italian communities. Moreover, we demonstrate that this difference does not appear to have changed over the last 70 years. For instance, differences in voter turnout apparent in the late 1940s remain in the 21st century. This latter finding has implications for our view of the likelihood of assimilation of immigrant groups to local norms, particularly in cases of large-scale migration.

AB - A range of evidence exists demonstrating that social capital is associated with a number of important economic outcomes such as economic growth, trade and crime. A recent literature goes further to illustrate how historical events and variation can lead to the development of differing and consequential social norms. This paper examines the related questions of how persistent initial variations in social capital are, and the extent to which immigrant groups do or do not converge to the cultural and social norms of their recipient country by examining a unique and geographically concentrated immigration event in 16th century Italy. We demonstrate that despite the substantial time since migration these communities still display different behavior consistent with higher civic capital than other comparable Italian communities. Moreover, we demonstrate that this difference does not appear to have changed over the last 70 years. For instance, differences in voter turnout apparent in the late 1940s remain in the 21st century. This latter finding has implications for our view of the likelihood of assimilation of immigrant groups to local norms, particularly in cases of large-scale migration.

KW - Social Capital

KW - Electoral Turnout

KW - Migration

KW - Persistence

U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2015.10.003

DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2015.10.003

M3 - Journal article

VL - 120

SP - 160

EP - 173

JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

SN - 0167-2681

ER -