Social capital and patients’ mobility in Italy

Using a 10-year (2006–15) regional dataset on hospital discharges, we estimate the determinants of Italian regional outflow rates while also including three proxies for social capital: the quality of friendships, the involvement in social activities and the ratio of blood donors to the population. We find a significant push effect from the lack of social capital intended as generalized expectation of cooperative behaviour (proxied by blood donors); this does not hold true for the other two proxies of social capital. The lack of a cultural context where norms of reciprocity matter may reduce regions’ ability to retain their patients.