Social capital and targeted beneficiaries of a development project: A lab in the field experiment in rural Zimbabwe

Abstract

Social capital is critical for economic development, especially in settings where institutions are absent or weak (Cardenas & Carpenter, 2008). Social capital, defined as "the social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from (individuals)" (Putnam, 2000), is a theoretical construct that cannot be measured directly in its entirety, but rather its various elementary components need to be assessed. Recent literature has focused on two main components: structural and cognitive. The structural component encompasses roles, rules, procedures, and social networks, while the cognitive component includes pro-social attitudes such as trust, truthfulness, trustworthiness, reciprocity, and willingness to contribute to public goods. These two components are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, making it difficult to disentangle them.