Evolution of Social Capital and Economic Performance in New England Harvest Cooperatives

In 2010 a new management system based on harvest cooperatives called "sectors" was implemented in the US Northeast Multispecies Groundfish Fishery. We hypothesize that success of individual sectors might depend on their social capital. Sector members were surveyed prior to the implementation of the policy to develop baseline measures of social capital for each sector and again after the sectors had been operating for three years. We construct indices of bonding, bridging and linking social capital, information sharing, and trust and explore how these indicators of social capital have changed since the implementation of the sector program. We also evaluate the relationship between these social capital indicators and various measures of economic performance of sectors. The result suggests that the relationship between social capital and economic performance has strengthened over time. Profitability is associated with broader community and fishery-wide connections as well as bonding social capital within sectors.