Local Environmental Groups, the Creation of Social Capital, and Environmental Policy: Evidence from Vermont

Christopher McGrory Klyza, Andrew Savage and Jonathan Isham ()

Middlebury College Working Paper Series from Middlebury College, Department of Economics

Abstract: Scholars who have studied local environmental groups and their effects in the United States have tended to agree about three related, stylized facts: that such groups are widespread, that they are pursuing a diverse set of activities, and, at least implicitly, that they are creating social capital that significantly affects environmental policy and outcomes. However, a healthy skepticism of these claims among academics and within the policy community exists due to a lack of significant data to verify them. In this article, (1) we collect and interpret data to demonstrate, in two counties of central Vermont, that local environmental groups are indeed pursuing a diverse set of activities, developing a typology of these groups based on their main focus; (2) we show the groups are developing and maintaining social capital; and (3) we illustrate how these methodologies can enhance the literature on local environmental groups by testing claims about the extent and influence of these groups.

Keywords: local environmental groups; social capital; local organizations; Vermont (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2005-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env, nep-geo and nep-soc
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http://www.middlebury.edu/services/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0407R.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Local Environmental Groups, the Creation of Social Capital, and Environmental Policy: Evidence from Vermont (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0407r

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