Towards Indicators of Social Capital for Regional Development Issues: The Case of French Rural Areas

Abstract

This paper aims at giving empirical content to the notion of social capital for regional development issues. It first provides a typology of both positive and negative influences of sociological factors on economic performance, and a set of available social capital indicators. Second, using the results of four case studies, the relevance of these indicators is assessed. Third, it presents an econometric study on the role of social capital on economic development. The results show that both local cohesion (“bonding”) and external social links (“bridging”) are important in order to define social capital and explain performance.