This paper seeks to identify the role played by social capital in the private, community-based provision of a public good, in this case, trash collection. The community aspect is vitally important here since trash collection involves positive externalities leading to limited incentives for individual action. Also, trash collection is an activity in which individual action does not have much impact, so collective action is warranted. Why are some communities better able to organize themselves for the collective good than others? Given the same impetus, what particular characteristics of the community lead to activism in some neighborhoods and none in others? This chapter presents the results of a micro-empirical survey- based study of households in 65 neighborhoods of Dhaka. They indicate that the organization of voluntary waste management systems is a function of a proxy for social capital and of measures of associational activity, as well as the nature of such activity. The results show that the different proxies for social capital - trust, reciprocity and sharing - do, indeed, capture different aspects of social capital, with quite different impacts on community outcomes. Reciprocity among neighbors is far more important when it comes to cooperating for solid waste management than trust, for instance.
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(Published: 9-1-1999)
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