This essay came about at Ismail Serageldin's behest. He felt that it would be a worthwhile exercise if I were to try to connect the ideas developed in Dasgupta (1993) with those in Putnam with Leonardi and Nanetti; hereafter referred to as Putnam (1993), to see whether the concept of social capital has potency for an understanding of the kinds of institution that are most likely to protect and promote human well-being in poor countries. This essay is about that, If the understanding I reached in my earlier work and also reach here is somewhat different from Putnam's, it may well be because I have been studying certain aspects of rural life in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, while Putnam has been investigating the functioning of civil society in contemporary Italy (more recently, the United States; Putnam 1995). The point is not so much that the context matters; rather, it is that widening the set of contexts exposes the complexity of the idea of social capital and its efficacy.(1) A recurrent item on the agenda of social and political scientists has been to seek the most tolerable location for the boundary that separates the private and the public spheres of life, and to identify those agency roles, rights, expectations, and responsibilities that would define each sphere. It is not uncommon to view cultural differences in terms of the way different societies have "solved" this most critical of problems. But not all solutions have been effective in protecting and promoting human well-being. While an accumulation of social capital is necessary if the private and public spheres, no matter how they are conceived, are to flourish, it can also get in their way. The character of social capital matters greatly. In this essay I explore these complexities. Mary Douglas, Ira Katznelson, Dale Jorgenson, Paul Seabright, Ismail Serageldin, Giancarlo Spagnolo, and Gavin Wright commented on an earlier draft of the paper Over the years I have benefited greatly from discussions with them, and with Luca Anderlini, Kenneth Arrow Kaushik Basu, Carol Dasgupta, Paul David. Stefan Dercon. Stanley Engerman, Diego Gambetta, David Good, Jack Goody, Avner Greif, Robert Hinde, Sarwat Hussain, David Landes, Simon Levin, Karl-Goran Maler, Eric Maskin, Elinor Ostrom, Thomas Pantham, Alaknanda Patel, Kate Plaisted, Robert Putnam, Robert Solow, Joseph Stiglitz, and Simon Szreter. To them ail I am most grateful. A number of the ideas presented here were developed in my Kenneth Arrow Lectures, Stanford University (April 1997); the Tagore Lectures, M.S. University, Baroda (December 1997); the Yrjo Reenpaa Lecture, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Helsinki (September 1998); and the Gaston Eyskens Lectures, the Catholic University in Leuven (December 1998). Research support from the World Bank's Vice Presidency for Environmentally Sustainable Development and front the Beijer International Institute Of Ecological Economics, Stockholm, is gratefully acknowledged.
