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DOES SOCIAL CAPITAL PROMOTE SAFETY ON THE ROADS?
Author(s) -
NAGLER MATTHEW G.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-7295.2011.00411.x
Subject(s) - unobservable , social capital , capital (architecture) , economics , panel data , pedestrian , econometric model , econometrics , demographic economics , public economics , transport engineering , engineering , geography , political science , archaeology , law
I present evidence that social capital reduces traffic accidents and related death and injury, using data from a 10‐year panel of 48 U.S. states. The econometric challenge is to distinguish the causal effects of social capital from bias resulting from its correlation with unobservable characteristics by state that influence road risks. I accomplish this by employing snow depth as an instrument, and by restricting attention to summertime accidents. My results show that social capital has a statistically significant and sizable negative effect on crashes, traffic fatalities, serious traffic injuries, and pedestrian fatalities that holds up across a range of specifications . ( JEL R41, I18, Z13)