Broadband Internet and social capital

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Authors	GERACI Andrea NARDOTTO Mattia REGGIANI Tommaso SABATINI Fabio
Year of publication	2022
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Economics and Administration
Citation
Web	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104578
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104578
Keywords	ICT;Broadband infrastructure;Networks;Internet;Social capital;Civic capital
Attached files	broadband_internet.pdf GNRS_jpube2022.pdf
Description	We study the impact of broadband penetration on social capital in the UK. Our empirical strategy exploits a technological feature of the telecommunication infrastructure that generated substantial variation in the quality of Internet access across households. The speed of a domestic connection rapidly decays with the distance of a user’s line from the network’s node serving the area. Merging information on the topology of the network with geocoded longitudinal data about individual social capital from 1997 to 2017, we show that access to fast Internet caused a significant decline in civic and political engagement. Overall, our results suggest that broadband penetration crowded out several dimensions of social capital.
Related projects:	Economic Decision-Making: Hormonal Determinants and Ritualized Behavior