of other agents diminishes the danger of opportunistic behavior and so reducestransactions costs (in table 1.1 this externality is referred to as opportunism).Sharing knowledge about the nonbehavioral world (such as knowledge aboutprices and technologies) is the very stuff of the new growth economics (intable 1.1 this externality is referred to simply as knowledge). The third externalityis the benefits of collective action that overcomes the free-rider problem.For example, collective action might enable groups to impose sanctions againstopportunism, establish rules for the management of common pool resources,provide public goods, and reap scale economies through such mechanisms asinsurance and rotating savings and credit associations.Thus social capital is first a sub-set of the processes that generate externalities,namely, those generated by social interaction. It is then the sub-set of socialinteractions that are durable or the effects of which are durable. The samesocial interaction might meet both criteria for social capital. That is, it mightbe a durable form of interaction and have durable effects. Putnam’s choirs aredurable forms of social interaction that build trust, a durable effect. Even if thechoirs were dissolved, the trust would continue.A good way of testing a definition of social capital is to determine whethertrust is on the left-hand or right-hand side of any social capital equation.Fukuyama (1995) treats it as a right-hand-side variable that explains transactions
costs; Putnam (1993) and Barr (2000) treat it as a left-hand-side variable
that is explained by social interaction. In my classification it is an intermediate
variable, produced by social interaction and producing a reduction in transactions
costs, but its durability gives it the property of capital. Transactions costs
are a function of trust, and trust is a function of social interaction. This is the
basic structure when the effects of social interaction are durable: social interaction
is a flow that generates stocks of inputs into the production process such
as trust, knowledge, and norms.
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