Sosyal Sermayenin Ekonomik Büyümeye Etkisi: Kamu Kesimi Etkililiğine Dayalı Ampirik Bir İnceleme

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of social capital, which is one of the prominent agendas of social sciences and referred as the missing link of growth, which we will express in terms of annual per capita income change. In this framework, the study is based on two main research questions: "Does the economic growth performance of countries rely on the accumulation of social capital in addition to the physical and human capital accumulation emphasized by the theory?" and "Does the effectiveness and size of the public sector determine the effect of social capital on economic growth?". In line with the research questions, a dataset of annual data covering the period 2009-2019 for 120 countries was utilized. Apart from the panel covering all countries, based on the IMF's categorization, three different panels were obtained developed economies, emerging market economies, and low-income economies. Static panel data analysis was employed for the first research question, and Hansen's (1999) threshold analysis was performed for the second research question. The analysis findings indicate that social capital's impact on growth is sensitive to public sector effectiveness in advanced economies, to public sector size in low-income economies, and to both factors in emerging market economies. On the other hand, although social capital has a positive effect on economic growth in general, a negatif effect of social capital emerged in two cases where a significant relationship was found. The first one is observed in low-income economies when the size of the public sector is above the estimated threshold. The second occurs in advanced economies when public sector efficiency is below the threshold. The study concludes with policy recommendations for an effective public sector to support the formation of growth-generating social capital.