Abstract
Since the pioneering study by Banfield, the North‐South gap in Italian social capital has been considered by international scholars as an example of how cultural diversity within a country can generate different developmental outcomes. Most studies, however, suffer from limited external validity and measurement error. This paper exploits a new and representative online lab‐experiment to assess social‐capital patterns in Italy. Unlike previous experiments, we do not inform participants about the geographic origins of their counterparts. This feature allows us to assess the North‐South gap in universal, as opposed to parochial, behavior. Results suggest that Southerners and Northerners do not systematically differ in generalized prosocial preferences. Only trustworthiness is higher among. Northerners, while they are statistically similar to Southerners in many other economic preferences such as cooperation, trust, expected trustworthiness, altruism, and risk tolerance. We also show that the gap in trustworthiness stems from the lower reciprocity of Southerners in response to large transfers, and it is characterized by the intergenerational transmission of norms. Possible policy implications are discussed.
Highlights
Trust is recognized as a key predictor of financial and economic success (e.g. Knack and Keefer, 1997; Guiso et al, 2004; Algan and Cahuc, 2010)
With respect to the other preferences, we do not find any significant difference across macroareas (Table 4a) or between the south and the rest of Italy (Table 4b) in terms of altruism, cooperation (3-4), conditional cooperation (5-6), and risk propensity (7-8). Neither of these results stems from the online nature of the experimental and survey setting adopted in Trustlab. Both an internet connection and a device enabling online access are needed in order to take part in Trustlab, we find no evidence that this selection brings about systematic trends in the experimental outcomes
We find that southern Italians are not statistically different from citizens residing in other macroareas with respect to generalized trust, beliefs about other’s trustworthiness, cooperation, altruism and risk preferences
Summary
Trust is recognized as a key predictor of financial and economic success (e.g. Knack and Keefer, 1997; Guiso et al, 2004; Algan and Cahuc, 2010). On the basis of direct observations and interviews in a single southern Italian town (which he gave the fictional name of ‘Montegrano’), Banfield concluded that a possible root of underdevelopment of the (entire) south could be explained by a cultural trait of Southerners, i.e. the inability to cooperate with (and trust) non-family members. This inability would result from ‘amoral familism’, a social norm prescribing that societal welfare is subordinated to the interests of the individual and to those of the nuclear family. The authors argued, candidates are elected on the basis of citizens’ personal interest rather than social welfare
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