Quantcast
Channel: Social Capital Blog » kennedy school
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 5

Interesting upcoming Harvard lunchtime talk on Internet & Social Capital

0
0

Flickr photo by www_ukberri_net

On Sept. 8, 2011 at the Harvard Kennedy School at lunchtime from 12-1:30, Ludget Woessmann from Munich, Germany is speaking about his research on “The Internet and Social Capital.”

Woessman is on the faculty of Economics, University of Munich and Head of the Department of Human Capital and Innovation, Ifo Institute for Economic Research.

If interested in attending, e-mail Antonio at pepgadmin@hks.harvard.edu.

The lunchtime talk comes out of a recent CESIfo Working paper titled “Surfing Alone? The Internet and Social Capital: Evidence from an Unforeseeable Technological Mistake.” The paper is co-written by Stefan Bauernschuster, Oliver Falck, and Ludger Woessmann. CESIFO WORKING PAPER NO. 3469 (May 2011)

Abstract: Does the Internet undermine social capital or facilitate inter-personal and civic engagement in the real world? Merging unique telecommunication data with geo-coded German individual-level data, we investigate how broadband Internet affects several dimensions of social capital. One identification strategy uses panel information to estimate value-added models. A second exploits a quasi-experiment in East Germany created by a mistaken technology choice of the state-owned telecommunication provider in the 1990s that still hinders broadband Internet access for many households. We find no evidence that the Internet reduces social capital. For some measures including children’s social activities, we even find significant positive effects.



Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 5

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images