Does social trust determine social progress? Evidence for the European regions

Social trust is a heavily rooted element whose positive impact on economic performance has been widely corroborated for many contexts. However, the understanding of social progress disparities in aspects other than income is attracting increasing attention and is a key goal for the European Commission. European regions present notable disparities in many non-economic aspects that characterize advanced societies such as personal rights, freedom, tolerance and inclusion and access to advanced education. This paper provides fresh evidence on the impact of social trust on a wide array of aspects categorized as advanced features of social progress in the framework of the European Social Progress Index 2020 (EU-SPI). The results show a positive impact of social trust on most of the indicators, which is robust to endogeneity issues. These insights help to understand the enormous differences in terms of social progress across European regions and provide useful information for the design of future policies that pursue a more equal Europe.