Since the pioneering study by Banfield, the North-South gap in Italian social capital has been considered by international scholars as an example of how cultural diversity within a country can generate different developmental outcomes. Most studies, however, suffer from limited external validity and measurement error. This paper exploits a new and representative online lab-experiment to assess social-capital patterns in Italy. Unlike previous experiments, we do not inform participants about the geographic origins of their counterparts. This feature allows us to assess the North-South gap in universal, as opposed to parochial, behavior. Results suggest that Southerners and Northerners do not systematically differ in generalized prosocial preferences. Only trustworthiness is higher among. Northerners, while they are statistically similar to Southerners in many other economic preferences such as cooperation, trust, expected trustworthiness, altruism, and risk tolerance. We also show that the gap in trustworthiness stems from the lower reciprocity of Southerners in response to large transfers, and it is characterized by the intergenerational transmission of norms. Possible policy implications are discussed.

中文翻译：

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班菲尔德说得对吗？来自全国实验室实验的新见解


自班菲尔德的开创性研究以来，意大利社会资本的南北差距已被国际学者视为一个国家内文化多样性如何产生不同发展结果的例子。然而，大多数研究都存在有限的外部有效性和测量误差。本文利用一种新的、具有代表性的在线实验室实验来评估意大利的社会资本模式。与之前的实验不同，我们不会告知参与者其对应者的地理起源。这一特征使我们能够评估普遍行为而非狭隘行为的南北差距。结果表明，南方人和北方人在普遍的亲社会偏好上没有系统性的差异。其中只有可信度较高。北方人虽然在统计上与南方人在许多其他经济偏好上相似，例如合作、信任、预期可信度、利他主义和风险承受能力。我们还表明，可信度差距源于南方人对大额转移支付的较低互惠性，其特点是规范的代际传递。讨论了可能的政策影响。