Resumen
Social capital is an essential element in any growth and development social policy strategy that faces high exchange costs caused by either or both asymmetric information and moral hazard in transactional situations. Using a methodological design composed by an income -spending comparative analysis of an insular against a continental population besides of a poverty changés probability decomposition, a local development epistemology category know as ?cognitive synergy? proposed by Boisier as a measure of informal social capital is empirically approach. The research main findings show that social capital is more correlated with lower poverty levels if they are measured by housing living conditions instead of proving new avenues for improving income levels. However, the least the income level is the more effective is social capital to reduce poverty levels measured by income levels.