Social capital has been proved to be related to economic growth, financial development and economic performance in general. The purpose of the present article is suggesting a link between social capital and climate. The paper serves as a first statistical test on whether climatic differences between countries are linked social capital differences. Climate is taken as given and then systematic differences in what different climates of the world could have had on the social capital index have been tested. The relationship between climate and social capital remains significant after controlling for income, education and life expectancy. The results show that temperate climate is favourably associated to high levels of the social capital index; while tropical, dry climate, and climate of high heights are inversely related. Moreover, dry climate and climate of high heights (both extreme climates) seem to have a similar effect on social capital, as we cannot appreciate a statistically significant difference between them.
El capital social se ha relacionado con el crecimiento económico, el desarrollo financiero y en general con la evolución de la economía. Este artículo apunta a un posible vínculo entre capital social y clima. Se presenta un primer análisis estadístico sobre diferencias climáticas y sus correspondencias con diferentes niveles de capital social para un amplio espectro de países. Los resultados muestran que la relación entre clima y capital social sigue siendo significativa una vez controlados los datos por niveles de renta, educación y esperanza de vida. El clima templado se asocia positivamente a altos niveles de capital social; mientras que los climas tropical, seco y de altura son inversamente proporcionales al índice de capital social. De los resultados se desprende, además, que los climas seco y de altura (climas extremos) parecen tener similitud en su efecto sobre el capital social, pues no se pueden distinguir diferencias estadísticas significativas entre ellos.
I would like to thank Antonio Ciccone and Joachim Voth from Universitat Pompeu Fabra; and Jose L. Zofío and Inmaculada Alvarez from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid for their useful comments on this paper. I would also like to acknowledge financial support from Universitat Pompeu Fabra during my period of first investigation on this topic. Opinions reflect solely those of the author