TY  - JOUR
AU  - Alesina,Alberto F.
AU  - Giuliano,Paola
TI  - Family Ties and Political Participation
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15415
PY  - 2009
Y2  - October 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15415
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15415.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alberto F. Alesina
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center 210
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-8388
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: aalesina@harvard.edu

Paola Giuliano
Anderson School of Management
UCLA
110 Westwood Plaza
C517 Entrepreneurs Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
Tel: 310/206-6890
Fax: 310/825-4011
E-Mail: paola.giuliano@anderson.ucla.edu
AB  - We establish an inverse relationship between family ties and political participation, such that the more individuals rely on the family as a provider of services, insurance, transfer of resources, the lower is one’s civic engagment and political participation. We also show that strong family ties appear to be a substitute for generalized trust, rather than a complement to it. These three constructs-civic engagement, political participation, and trust- are part of what is known as social capital; therefore, in this paper, we contribute to the investigation of the origin and evolution of social capital. We establish these results using within-country evidence and looking at the behavior of immigrants from various countries in 32 different destination places.
ER  -