No.3 Social Capital Formation in an Imperfect Credit Market　—Evidence from Sri Lanka—

  • #Working Papers

This study uses a unique long panel dataset from Sri Lanka to examine the mechanism of social capital formation in an imperfect credit market. The authors show that households in the face of credit constraints reduce the time allocation for social capital investment, such as participation in community works. The paper also finds that temporal declines in social capital investment persistently reduce the level of trust in the community. These findings imply the existence of a poverty trap, because the absence of a credit market access generates poor social capital which, in turn, leads to poor access to the informal credit market, causing further credit constraints.

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Author
Masahiro Shoji, Keitaro Aoyagi, Ryuji Kasahara, Mika Ueyama
Date of issuance
March 2010
Related areas
  • #Asia
Topics
  • #Economic Policy
Research area
Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction
Research project