Causal Effects of Social Capital

This book presents a series of studies focusing on the role of social capital in the labor market and beyond. Using the effect of individual social capital on labor markets as an example, this book pays special attention to the origins of and solutions to the endogeneity problem. It uses several identification strategies to systematically test for the causal effects of social capital.


First, this book constitutes the first attempt to offer a systematic account of the progress made by social scientists in improving causal inferences into the role of social capital in labor markets. Second, the book adopts specialized approaches—both classical and new—toward different sources of endogeneity. Incorporating the latest research from outside fields, such as economics, into sociological research is a small but significant methodological innovation. Third, in addition to empirical research, this book undertakes an innovative exploration of the theory of social capital. It creatively explains the dynamic evolution of social capital, which helps balance objectivism and subjectivism when analyzing interpersonal actions.


For sociologists who focus on quantitative research methods and social capital, scholars who study Chinese societies, and related students, this book provides both advanced methods and rich empirical research.


Yunsong Chen is a Changjiang Scholars Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Nanjing University. He earned his DPhil in Sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He has broad research interests in the fields of quantitative sociology (e.g., social networks, social capital, and advanced models for causal inference) and computational sociology. His academic work has appeared in leading English-language journals in the social sciences, including Social Networks, Social Science Research, British Journal of Sociology, Poetics, and Journal of Contemporary Chinaand Scientific Reports, as well as Chinese journals, including Social Science in China and Journal of Chinese Sociology. He serves on the editorial board and international advisory board for several journals, including Sociology, Social Science Research, Journal of Social Computing, and Chinese Sociological Review. His newest book, Understanding China through Big Data, was published by Routledge in 2021.