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
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.
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