Social capital and economic growth: A meta‐analysis
综合了83项实证研究中的957个估计值，发现社会资本对经济增长的平均效应接近零且统计不显著，但效应异质性很大，且存在显著的发表偏倚。
Abstract This research provides a comprehensive, quantitative synthesis of the empirical literature on social capital and economic growth. It assesses 957 estimates from 83 studies. While our preferred estimate of the overall mean effect is close to zero and statistically insignificant, the main finding of our analysis is the substantial degree of effect heterogeneity. We find that social capital effects can range from large negative to large positive, suggesting that its impact on economic growth varies substantially depending on the context. However, our investigation was unable to trace the sources of this heterogeneity to any observable data, estimation, and study characteristics. This suggests that other factors, not included in our study, are responsible. Our analysis did uncover significant publication bias, indicating that the estimates of social capital's effects in the empirical literature are overstated. A further finding from our analysis is that we found no evidence that different types of social capital have different effects on economic growth.