Social capital and unemployment. Swiss cantons in a comparative perspective

Recent interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical work has suggested that social capital plays a pivotal role in explaining the economic performance of contemporary societies. This article presents the first systematic, empi rical examination of the realtionship between social capital and unemployme nt in twenty-six Swiss cantons over the period between 1992 and 1997. The f indings provide strong evidence that social capital - measured by a multidi mensional indicator incorporating both objective associations between indiv iduals and subjective ties - has an impact on unemployment rates. Besides t he influence of further political and economic determinants this article sh ows that a high degree of social capital is systematically related to a low er unemployment rate in a given canton while the reverse is true for canton s with lower social capital.