摘要：This essay is designed to call into question the currentboomlet in policy and academic circles for social capi-tal.1Social capital has become an explanation for anarray of domestic problems in the United States as wellas for understanding issues of third world development.2However, there is strong reason to ask whether the rise ininterest in social capital is due to its demonstratedstrength in elucidating socioeconomic phenomena orwhether it is the intellectual equivalent of a stock marketbubble. To be clear, analyses of social capital have high-lighted an important aspect of socioeconomic behaviorwhich has been underemphasized by economists¡ªtherole of nonmarket relationships in determining indi-vidual and collective behavior.3So, I do not questioncontinuing research on this phenomenon. Rather, I ques-Beginning with this issue of Focus, we plan to includeselected articles examining the concept of, and re-search on, .social capital.. Because it is by no meansclear what the concept embraces, we open with adebate.perhaps more accurately, a discussion.be-tween two scholars with long-standing interests in theinfluence of the community on individual behavior,and rather different perspectives upon it: Steven N.Durlauf of the University of Wisconsin.Madison andSamuel Bowles of the University of Massachusetts atAmherst
