Social Capital and Market Imperfections: Accessing Formal Credit in Thailand

Thomas Dufhues, Gertrud Buchenrieder, neé Schrieder and Nuchanata Munkung

Oxford Development Studies, 2013, vol. 41, issue 1, 54-75

Abstract: Social capital matters in the economy. This study shows how different forms of individual social capital affect access to formal credit in rural Thailand. Social capital is defined as interpersonal network (ties) resources. A data collection approach is used that originates in the field of sociology and is innovative in the context of development economics: the personal network survey. Four social capital variables are defined according to the tie strength and social distance between the respondent and his/her network members, resulting in four different social capital variables: (1) bonding (strong ties to persons of similar social standing); (2) bridging (weak ties to persons of similar social standing); (3) bonding link (strong ties to persons of higher social standing); and (4) bridging link (weak ties to persons of higher social standing). It has been found that bonding link social capital reduces the chances of being credit access-constrained. Political patronage or nepotism as the driving force behind the result is ruled out. Nevertheless, some evidence for elite capture was found.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13600818.2012.753999 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:oxdevs:v:41:y:2013:i:1:p:54-75

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CODS20

DOI: 10.1080/13600818.2012.753999

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Development Studies is currently edited by Jo Boyce and Frances Stewart

More articles in Oxford Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().