Making Democracy Work: Culture, Social Capital and Elections in China / Gerard Padró i Miquel, Nancy Qian, Yiqing Xu, Yang Yao.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miquel, Gerard Padró i.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Qian, Nancy.

Xu, Yiqing.

Yao, Yang.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w21058.

NBER working paper series no. w21058

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.

Summary:

This paper aims to show that culture is an important determinant of the effectiveness of formal democratic institutions, such as elections. We collect new data to document the presence of voluntary and social organizations and the history of electoral reforms in Chinese villages. We use the presence of village temples to proxy for culture, or more specifically, for social (civic) capital and show that their presence greatly enhances the increase in public goods due to the introduction of elections. These results support the view that social capital complements democratic institutions such as elections.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2015.