Surfing alone? The internet and social capital: Evidence from an unforeseeable technological mistake

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bauernschuster, Stefan; Falck, Oliver; Woessmann, Ludger
• 署名单位: University of Passau; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of Munich; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.05.007
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 73-89
• 关键词: INTERNET; Social capital

摘要

Does the Internet undermine social capital, such as real-world inter-personal relations and civic engagement? Merging unique telecommunication data with geo-coded German individual-level data, we investigate how broadband Internet affects social capital. A first identification strategy uses first-differencing to account for unobserved time-invariant individual heterogeneity. A second identification strategy exploits a quasi-experiment in East Germany created by a mistaken technology choice of the state-owned telecommunication provider in the 1990s that hindered broadband Internet roll-out for many households. We find no evidence of negative effects of the Internet on several aspects of social capital. In fact, the effect on a composite social capital index is significantly positive. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.