TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
AU  - Redlick,Charles
TI  - Social Capital and Urban Growth
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14374
PY  - 2008
Y2  - October 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14374
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14374.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Charles Redlick
Bain Capital, LLC
111 Huntington Avenue
Boston MA 02199
E-Mail: charles.redlick@post.harvard.edu
AB  - Social capital is often place-specific while schooling is portable, so the prospect of migration may reduce the returns to social capital and increase the returns to schooling.  If social capital matters for urban success, it is possible that an area can get caught in a bad equilibrium where the prospect of out-migration reduces social capital investment and a lack of social capital investment makes out-migration more appealing.  We present a simple model of that process and then test its implications.  We find little evidence to suggest that social capital is correlated with either area growth or rates of out-migration.  We do, however, find significant differences in the returns to human capital across space, and a significant pattern of skilled people disproportionately leaving declining areas.  For people in declining areas, the prospect of out-migration may increase the returns to investment in human capital, but it does not seem to impact investment in social capital.
ER  -