The empirics of social capital and economic development: a critical perspective

This paper provides an introduction to the concept of social capital, and carries out a critical review of the empirical literature on social capital and economic development. The survey points out six main weaknesses affecting the empirics of social capital. Identified weaknesses are then used to analyze, in a critical perspective, some prominent empirical studies and new interesting researches published in last two years. The need emerges to acknowledge, also within the empirical research, the multidimensional, context-dependent and dynamic nature of social capital. The survey also underlines that, although it has gained a certain popularity in the empirical research, the use of “indirect” indicators may be misleading. Such measures do not represent social capital’s key components identified by the theoretical literature, and their use causes a considerable confusion about what social capital is, as distinct from its outcomes, and what the relationship between social capital and its outcomes may be. Research reliant upon an outcome of social capital as an indicator of it will necessarily find social capital to be related to that outcome. This paper suggests to focus the empirical research firstly on the “structural” aspects of the concept, therefore excluding by the measurement toolbox all indicators referring to social capital’s supposed outcomes

The interplay of human and social capital in shaping entrepreneurial performance: the case of Vietnam

This study investigates the effects of human capital, social capital and their interaction on the performance of 1,398 Vietnamese new-born firms. Operating profit is used as the measure of success. Human capital is captured by individual-level professional education, start-up experience, and learning. Whereas the first two dimensions of human capital are measured with traditional indicators, we define learning as the ability to accumulate knowledge to conduct innovation activities (new product introduction, product innovation and process innovation). Social capital is measured as benefits obtained from personal strong-tie and weak-tie networks. Key findings are threefold: (i) human capital strongly predicts firm success, with learning exhibiting a statistically significant positive association with operating profit, (ii) benefits from weak ties outweigh those from strong ties, (iii) interaction of human capital and social capital displays a statistically significant positive effect on new-firm performance

Strategies and performance of the CMS silicon tracker alignment during LHC Run 2

The strategies for and the performance of the CMS silicon tracking system alignment during the 2015–2018 data-taking period of the LHC are described. The alignment procedures during and after data taking are explained. Alignment scenarios are also derived for use in the simulation of the detector response. Systematic effects, related to intrinsic symmetries of the alignment task or to external constraints, are discussed and illustrated for different scenarios