Abstract

Exploiting high-frequency vaccination data for COVID-19 and social capital measures at the municipal level in Italy between January and October 2021, this paper estimates the effect of social capital on vaccination compliance. We find that high social capital had a significant positive effect on the increase in weekly vaccination coverage rate for the overall population throughout the entire period of observation. The maximum effect magnitude of 1.25% is registered in the last week of July, before the introduction of the COVID-19 certificate. Results do not differ by gender and the effect is mainly driven by younger generations. Our findings shed light on the role of social capital as a driver of health protective behaviour, which can be leveraged on by public health campaigns and health interventions.