There is nothing controversial in saying that hum an capital matters a great deal for economic development. Research during the past 50 years has confirmed this belief, and governments, international organizations and NGOs have worked hard to improve human capital indicators. But the majority of policy makers and researchers have considered and studied human capital as an issue only concerning individuals. However, human capital also has a social component which has not yet been well understood, despite a growing literature looking beyond the individual aspect of human capital. The aim of this dissertation is to shed some light on this social component of hum an capital. The recurrent question that I am asking throughout this thesis is "How do others matter?", in relation to hum an capital. In particular, I am wondering how social capital interacts with human capital. To study this question, I take India as a case study. India is a country where human capital has dramatically changed in the last 50 years, and social capital had an important role in this evolution. More concretely, India's peculiar social structure pro vides a very interesting context to study the relation between human capital and social capital.
