سرمایه اجتماعی در ایجاد سرمایه انسانی و رشد اقتصادی : روش مصرف مولد

Social capital is a broad term containing the social networks and norms that generate shared understandings, trust and reciprocity, which underpin cooperation and collective action for mutual benefits, and creates the base for economic prosperity. This study deals with the formation of social capital through development of human capital that is created from productive consumption. This paper attempts to formalize incorporation of social capital (SK). This paper sets up a one-sector growth model, where the engine of growth is capital accumulation. The production function for final output is of the AK-type, which uses aggregate capital as single input. Aggregate capital is represented by a Cobb–Douglas index comprising three types capital. Human capital accumulation results from productive consumption and an increase in social capital is driven by the existence of human capital. The optimal growth rate of consumption is derived and it is shown that both human capital and social capital accumulation affect the equilibrium growth rate. Finally, paper presents some empirical evidence on social capital and economic growth.

The study of determining factors of economic growth in the literature mainly focuses on economic factors like relative stock of physical and/or human capital, trade, and available technology, etc. Earlier studies omit a relevant dimension: social factors such as culture, social norms and regulations, which may act as pivotal role for promotion of economic growth and development. This paper addresses one of the issues that still remain open in the literature: the channels and mechanisms through which social factors affect macroeconomic performance. Recently, economists become more and more interested in the role of social culture/behaviour as an explanation for why some regions/countries are rich and others remain poor (Putnam et al., 1993). Several studies have investigated the impact of social culture, which includes social structure based on trustworthiness, norms, regulation, cooperation and networks. All these lead to develop a new concept—social capital (Bourdieu, 1980, Bourdieu, 1986, Coleman, 1988, Coleman, 1990, Putnam, 2000, Putnam et al., 1993 and Fukuyama, 1995). The concept of social capital has a long history in the social sciences. Bourdieu, 1980 and Bourdieu, 1986, Coleman, 1988 and Coleman, 1990 and Putnam, 1995 and Putnam, 2000 are credited for introducing the concept of social capital1 and popularized it. Coleman (1990) defines social capital: ‘…social organization constitutes social capital, facilitating the achievement of goals that could not be achieved in its absence or could be achieved only at a higher cost.’ Putnam et al. (1993) provide similar characterization, ‘…social capital…refers to features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of society.’ According to them, social capital is a type of positive group externality that arises from social organization. Fukuyama (1995) argues that only certain shared norms and values should be regarded as social capital. ‘…Social capital can be defined simply as the existence of a certain set of informal rules or norms shared among members of a group that permits cooperation among them. …The norms that produce social capital…must substantively include…meeting of obligations, and reciprocity.’ Putnam (2000) introduces the idea of social capital in terms of relations or interdependence between individuals: ‘…social capital refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.’ ‘Social capital may be defined operationally as resources embedded in social networks and accessed and used by actors for actions’ (Lin, 2001). So, the concept of social capital has two important components: (i) it represents resources embedded in social relations rather than individuals and (ii) access and use of such resources reside with actors. Thus, social capital creates a common platform in which individuals can use membership and networks to secure benefits.2 Social capital is the shared knowledge, understanding, norms, rules and expectations about patterns of interactions that groups of individuals bring to a recurrent activity (Ostrom, 2000). Thus, social capital can be considered as the stock of active connections among individuals—the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviours that bind the members of human networks and make possible cooperative action (Cohen and Prusak, 2001). Social capital is usually understood as referring to the values and norms prevailing within the community, to the networks that are based on those values and norms, and to the social trust that evolves through those common values and networks. Actually, social capital is a broad term containing the social norms and networks that generate shared understandings, trust and reciprocity, which underpin co-operation and collective action for mutual benefits that helps to improve efficiency of the society. Social capital allows individuals to resolve collective problems more easily and individuals often might be better off if they cooperate, with everybody doing her/his own work.3 Social capital (at individual level) also refers to a system of interpersonal networks (Dasgupta, 2002), which enhances cooperation and collaboration that also helps to create the economic opportunities. Considering social capital as a productive factor4Heller (1996); Ostrom (2000) and Rose (2000) point out that social capital contributes to economic growth by facilitating collaboration between individual interests towards the achievement of increased output. Several studies (Bertrand et al., 2000, Beugelsdijk and Smulders, 2004, Bjornskov, 2006, Glaeser et al., 2000, Alesina and Ferrara, 2002 and Miguel, 2003; Knack et al., 1997; Sobel, 2002, Tau, 2003 and Temple and Johnson, 1998, etc.) have discussed about the features of social capital and its contribution to economic growth. Knack and Keefer (1997), Temple and Johnson (1998) provide the evidences that high levels of trust and social participation are positively correlated with economic growth, after controlling other growth promoting factors. The growing literature claims that repeating trustful interactions in the economy do sediment in higher levels of generalized trust. This aggregated stock of trust is treated as input in the aggregate production function (Crudelia, 2006). Scholars like Miguel (2003), Mogues and Carter (2005), Rupasingha et al. (2006) study the relationship between the stock of social capital and its relation to economic development, especially, low crime rates and reduction of other social problems. It should also be noted that countries/regions with relatively higher stocks of social capital, in terms of generalized trust and widespread civic engagement seem to achieve higher levels of growth, compared to societies with low trust and low civicness (Putnam et al., 1993). So, social capital contributes to economic growth by focusing the importance of trust and cooperation within firm, industry, market and the state. Thus, social capital truly greases the wheels that allow nations to advance smoothly and creates the base for economic prosperity. Social capital formation might be a desirable objective for policy-making.5 Policy maker should aim to develop social norms, regulations, trust and cooperation with related ideas of social inclusion or school improvement through development of human capital that could be created from productive consumption. Following Steger (2002) consumption is used partly for the development of human capital in terms of education and health that increases the productivity of labour that has positive contribution to the output growth, which is revealed, on macroeconomic level. Development of human capital actually creates the base for social capital, which is nothing but the externality of human capital in Lucas (1988). The positive externalities associated with human capital are given prime importance in the new growth theories, and in most of these dynamic models externality result in social increasing returns to scale in the production sector. In Lucas (1988), human capital is found to have positive external effect on aggregate production function.6 The literature on finding education externalities has been revived in recent years, partly in the light of the new fashionable idea of social capital. According to Fukuyama, ‘…the area where government have the greatest direct ability to generate social capital is education’. There is a general view by proponents of social capital that education increases social capital.7 Education is often cited as a key determinant of social capital8 and this is well documented in the literature (Putnam, 1995 and Helliwell and Putnam, 1999; Alesina and La Ferrara, 2000; Glaeser et al., 2000 and Rupasingha et al., 2006). However, usually the precise mechanism is not very clearly specified but often implicitly observed in the notion that schools impart good standards of behaviour, help to socialize young people and also enable them to engage in society by virtue of being better informed. Schools serve as institutional environments that favour informal associability amongst peers and fellow members. It should be noted that cooperative tendency build up social trust, which is created in the schooling system. Education's longstanding concern with association and quality of life in associations create the platform for interaction between individuals. Interaction enables people commit themselves to each other and make direct and indirect important contribution to the development of social networks9 (e.g., trust, tolerance and reciprocity that are usually involved). Through dialogue and conversation among themselves, educated individuals are interested to develop cultural environment in which people can work together. Thus, social capital forms in the creation of human capital through schooling, which has been considered here as productive consumption. Education contributes to economic growth not only by building human capital but by instilling common norms and regulations that increase social cohesion (Gradstein and Justman, 2000) also. So, the productive consumption on education stimulates to accumulate human capital through which a base is created for cooperation, which is capable to evolve norms, regulations, and social networks in the form of social capital that lead to economic growth and development (Temple and Johnson, 1998 and Helliwell and Putnam, 1999). There is considerable evidence that communities with a good stock of social capital are more likely to be benefited from higher educational achievement, better health in terms of life expectancy, and better economic performance.10 Thus, trustworthy and cooperative society helps faster economic growth. Few studies (Rupasingha et al., 2006) have given attention how this social capital generates or what policies stimulate to form this capital. Bourdieu (1986) points out that economic, cultural and social capital together shape the permissible actions in any particular field of operation. Bourdieu (1986) observes these capitals as running together in class formations, and also as convertible.11Rupasingha et al. (2006) identifies inputs into the production of social capital for the USA, using individual and community factors that are important determinants of social capital. The mechanism through which social capital is created is still opened. This study focuses on these untouched parts of the determinants of social capital in economic growth model. This paper deals with this issue by combining the accumulation of social capital along with human capital, which in turn depends on productive consumption (Steger, 2002). This paper introduces to stress the complementarity of social inputs with other (human) inputs in the aggregate growth process. The idea is that social capital creates pave the way for economic development in an under developed economy provided there is a sufficient (quality and quantity) stock of human capital to transmit the norms and networks that support reciprocity and cooperation as an externality to invest in education. The growth theorists, after Lucas (1988), have emphasized interactions amongst agents that may cause the social returns to human capital to exceed the private ones. Persons with greater skill may raise the productivity of others with whom they interact, and therefore, accumulation of human capital may increase total factor productivity in an economy. Truly, the value of social capital depends on its ability to create an efficient means of production. This paper mainly internalizes educational externality in terms of social capital formation through development of human capital in the channel of productive consumption12 and its impact on economic development in the framework of endogenous growth model.13 This study is organized as follows: Section 2 builds up a model in the framework of endogenous growth model. Section 2.1 discusses how productive consumption develops human capital. Section 2.2 analyses how the developed human capital (or educated individuals) generate and accumulate social capital. Section 2.3 provides standard welfare function and optimizes it with respect to constraint. Section 2.4 analyses the results derived from our model. Section 3 provides empirical support for social capital. Section 4 discusses about the possible policies that help to develop social capital and lastly concludes.

Social capital is a broad term containing the social norms and networks that generate shared understandings, trust and reciprocity, which underpin co-operation and collective action for mutual benefits, and creates the base for economic prosperity. Social capital is accumulated when people interact in a purposeful manner with each other in formal and informal meeting places. These social activities increase with development of human capital that is generated in the schooling system. Educated individuals are interested in dialogue and conversation that enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and thereby to knit the social fabric. Thus, social capital greases the wheels that allow nations to advance smoothly. This paper tries to develop mechanism through which social capital forms and contributes to economic growth in the endogenous growth framework. This study deals with development of social capital through human capital formation that is created from productive consumption. The predictions of the model are examined empirically for a cross-section of countries. The empirical findings support our hypothesis that social capital has significant impact on the income level and economic growth rate.