Social Capital and Climate A First Statistical Approach

Social capital has been proved to be related to economic growth, financial development and economic performance in general. The purpose of the present article is suggesting a link between social capital and climate. The paper serves as a first statistical test on whether climatic differences between countries are linked social capital differences. Climate is taken as given and then systematic differences in what different climates of the world could have had on the social capital index have been tested. The relationship between climate and social capital remains significant after controlling for income, education and life expectancy. The results show that temperate climate is favourably associated to high levels of the social capital index; while tropical, dry climate, and climate of high heights are inversely related. Moreover, dry climate and climate of high heights (both extreme climates) seem to have a similar effect on social capital, as we cannot appreciate a statistically significant difference between them.