Social Capital and Economic Growth Revisited

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Social Capital and Economic Growth Revisited

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Reino Hjerppe

Abstract

Social capital facilitates cooperation in the society. High level of social capital promotes economic efficiency by lowering transaction costs. Trust towards strangers and low level of corruption are examples of high level of social capital. The concept of social capital is already an old one, but interest in studying its role and effects has increased notably during the past ten years or so. Review of the literature concerning the connection of economic growth and social capital shows that many studies have found strong positive correlation between the two. This does not, however, establish a causal relationship between them. In addition, defining and measuring social capital unequivocally has proven difficult. The concept has both a structural (whether people participate in group activities) and a cognitive dimension (norms, attitudes). The paper also deals with problems of formation of social capital and the possibilities to tackle the measurement problems.

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Paper provided by Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT) in its series VATT Discussion Papers with number 307.

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Date of creation: 09 Jun 2003
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Handle: RePEc:fer:dpaper:307

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
O10 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

Sari Pekkala, 2003. "Is Little Brother Nothing but Trouble?: Educational Attainment, Returns to Schooling and Sibling Structure," VATT Discussion Papers 302, Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT). [Downloadable!]
Tomi Kyyrä, 2001. "Estimating Equilibrium Search Models from Finnish Data," VATT Discussion Papers 256, Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT). [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
- Tomi Kyyrä, 2007. "Estimating Equilibrium Search Models from Finnish Data," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Society for Economic Research, vol. 20(2), pages 139-165, Autumn. [Downloadable!]

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This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.