Earthquake Hazard and Civic Capital

Abstract

We examine the empirical relationship between the exposure to earthquake hazard and civic capital in Italian municipalities. Drawing on the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, we find that earthquake hazard increases civic capital. We decompose the effect of earthquake hazard variation along four dimensions – frequency, space, magnitude, and timing – and observe that the effect is mostly explained by high-magnitude seismic events in the past. Our results are in line with the intuition that cooperative social norms build over a very long time span.

Keywords: Civic capital, Cooperation, Social norms, Earthquakes

JEL Classification: A12, D91, Q54, Z1