• English
  • Italiano
Rocco, L., Fumagalli, E., Suhrcke, M. (2011). From social capital to health - and back. University of York Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Paper 11/21.

We assess the causal relationship between health and social capital, measured by generalized trust, both at the individual and the community level. The paper contributes to the literature in two ways: it tackles the problems of endogeneity and reverse causation between social capital and health by estimating a simultaneous equation model, and it explicitly accounts for mis-reporting in self reported trust. The relationship is tested using data from the first four waves of the European Social Survey for 26 European countries, supplemented by regional data from the Eurostat. Our estimates show that a causal and positive relationship between selfperceived health and social capital does exist and that it acts in both directions. In addition, the magnitude of the structural coefficients suggests that individual social capital is a strong determinant of health, while community level social capital plays a considerably smaller role in determining health.

Authors

Rocco, Lorenzo

Address Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche “Marco Fanno” via del Santo, 33 – 35123 Padova. e-mail: [email protected] tel. +39 049 8274260 Research interests 1) Economics of Education 2) Health economics Current position Assistant Professor of Economics - Department of...

Fumagalli, Elena

Suhrcke, Marc

Prior to joining UEA I have worked for more than 5 years as an economist with the WHO European Office for Investment for Health and Development (Venice), where I was responsible for the research on the economics of health, and on social determinants and inequalities in health. Prior to WHO I have...

Attached content

Upcoming events

No events in the list.