Does social capital matter? A study of hit-and-run in US counties.

Autor: Castriota S; Department of Political Sciences, University of Pisa, Via Serafini 3, 56126, Pisa, Italy. Electronic address: stefano.castriota@unipi.it., Rondinella S; Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia 21, 80126, Napoli, Italy. Electronic address: sandro.rondinella@unina.it., Tonin M; Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Piazza Università 1, 39100, Bolzano, Italy; FBK-IRVAPP, Trento, Italy; CESifo, Munich, Germany; IZA, Bonn, Germany. Electronic address: mirco.tonin@unibz.it.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Social science & medicine (1982) [Soc Sci Med] 2023 Jul; Vol. 329, pp. 116011. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jun 12.
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116011
Abstrakt: We investigate the relationship between social capital and a decision that has dire health consequences: fleeing after a road accident. This event is unplanned, and the decision is taken under great emotional distress and time pressure, thus providing a test of whether social capital matters for behaviour in extreme conditions. We merge data from the universe of fatality accidents involving pedestrians in the US over the period 2000-2018 with a dataset on social capital measures at the county level. Using within-state-year variation, our results show that one standard deviation increase in social capital is associated with a reduction in the probability of hit-and-run of around 10.5%. Several falsification tests based on differences in social capital endowment between the county where the accident occurs and the county where the driver resides are suggestive of a causal interpretation of this evidence. Our findings show the importance of social capital in a new context, suggesting a broad impact on pro-social behaviour and adding to the positive returns of promoting civic norms.
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Databáze: MEDLINE
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