The effect of connected and isolated voluntary associations on economic activity in the United States, 1984–2000

This paper makes two empirical contributions to the literature on the putative effect of voluntary associations on economic activity. First, using a longitudinal database covering the entire United States, we differentiate between the effect of voluntary associations that are connected to other voluntary associations through the multiple membership of their members and voluntary associations that lack these ties. Second, we test for the existence of a conditional effect of the areal size of the spatial units under consideration, comparing results at the local community and the state level of analyses. We find that connected voluntary associations have a positive effect on the number of manufacturing establishments whereas isolated voluntary associations either have a negative effect or do not have any effect. Both local community and state level analyses reveal this pattern but the effects are stronger when the spatial unit of analysis is the local community.