社会资本的决定因素:基于主观经济地位视角的分析

Determinants of Social Capital:The Subjective Economic Status Perspective

本文利用2010、2012、2013和2015四个年份中国综合社会调查(CGSS)数据,以居民是否参加居委会或村委会选举投票来度量社会资本水平,系统分析了个人主观经济地位对其社会资本水平的影响。研究结果表明,人们较低的主观经济地位对其社会资本水平具有明显的消极影响:人们的主观经济地位越低,其参加投票的可能性越小。进一步的分析发现,个人主观经济地位是通过影响其公共参与信心以及对政府的信任进而影响其投票行为的,这种影响会因当地的法律知识水平和互联网使用整体状况不同而存在明显差异:在法律知识水平更高、互联网使用频率更高的地区,人们较低的主观经济地位对其参加选举投票的阻碍作用越小。本文的实证发现对于提升我国居民的社会资本水平有着重要的政策涵义。

Social capital plays an important role in economic development.Distinguished from human capital,social capital is aggregated through relationships.Social capital is widely used to explain economic phenomenon directly or indirectly,especially high levels of productivity in developed countries.Moreover,the influence of social capital on social economy is highly persistent such that communities and countries rich in social capital enjoy a comparative advantage for extended periods of time.It is thus very important to analyze factors that can influence the aggregation of individual social capital.What will be the conditions for the magnification or diminishing of the influence?What will be the mechanisms for the accumulation and depreciation of social capital?To answer the above questions,we analyzed the influence of subjective economic status on social capital.We used the China General Social Survey(CGSS)data in 2010,2012,2013,2015 and measured social capital based on the question whether citizens voted in neighborhood committee or village committee elections.We also measured subjective economic status based on a self-report question about family economic status compared to local average level,which was an attempt to systematically analyze the impact of subjective economic status of individuals on social capital.First,we examined whether subjective economic status had a significant impact on individual social capital.We then analyzed the mechanisms through which subjective economic status influenced the aggregation or depreciation of social capital.Finally,we conducted a heterogeneous analysis and explored the conditions under which the influence was magnified or diminished.The results show that low subjective economic status has a significant negative impact on social capital and the effect is robust.Specifically,the lower people’s subjective economic status is,the less likely they are to vote.This effect is still robust after solving endogeneity.Further analysis finds that subjective economic status of individuals affects their voting behavior through their confidence in participating in politics and their trust in local governments.This effect is significantly different due to different levels of local knowledge on law and the overall use of the Internet.In other words,in areas with higher levels of knowledge on law and higher frequency of Internet use,low subjective economic status has less negative effect on people’s participation in election voting.We enriched the literature on social capital by analyzing possible influence of individual subjective economic status.Previous studies did not account for the influences of subjective factors,but we added the missing piece.Income and education are traditionally deemed as the most important determinants of social capital,but we find that the impact of subject economic status is still significant after controlling the two factors.This finding provides a new perspective for improving social capital.We extended the dimensions measuring social capital empirically.Distinguished from previous studies on social networks,we adopted voting behavior to measure social capital.Following Guiso et al.(2011),we extended the current definition to civic capital,putting more emphasis on persistent and shared beliefs and values that helped a group overcome the free rider problem in the pursuit of socially valuable activities.We provide a new angle for future research to analyze social capital.In sum,this paper provides academic support for policies aiming to improve the level of social capital of Chinese citizens and empirical support for two important mechanisms able to improve the aggregation of social capital,i.e.,confidence in political participation and trust in government.The empirical findings of this paper also have important policy implications.Local governments can implement policies that boost citizen’s confidence in political participation and build their trust in government.This paper also sheds light on future research.Considering that economic development cannot guarantee a high level of social capital,how to improve subjective economic status of individuals is also an important issue.