What Do Cross-Country Surveys Tell Us about Social Capital?

David Tannenbaum, Alain Cohn, Christian Lukas Zünd and Michel André Maréchal
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David Tannenbaum: University of Utah
Alain Cohn: University of Michigan
Christian Lukas Zünd: University of Zurich
Michel André Maréchal: University of Zurich and UC San Diego

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2025, vol. 107, issue 1, 142-151

Abstract: We assess the predictive power of survey measures of social capital with a new behavioral data set that examines whether citizens report a lost wallet to its owner. Using data from more than 17,000 lost wallets across 40 countries, we find that survey measures of social capital—especially questions concerning generalized trust or generalized morality—are strongly and significantly correlated with country-level differences in wallet reporting rates. A second finding is that lost wallet reporting rates predict unique variation in the outputs of social capital, such as economic development and government effectiveness, not captured by existing measures.

Date: 2025
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