Abstract
The aim of the present study is to analyze social capital as a spatial resource that regions might use differently in their developmental process. We propose a theoretical framework in order to identify the different regional social capital workings as leading to either an open system of relations (the virtuous social capital—development spiral) or to a rather closed system of relations (the vicious social capital—development cycle). At the empirical level, we test the presence of these two developmental paths by two operational hypotheses that are tested through the development and use of appropriate entropy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) techniques. Our analysis involves an inclusive theorization of social capital as composed of trust, norms/values, and networks. Using individual and aggregate level economic indicators, we obtain different rankings of the Greek regions compared to the initial entropy weights rankings. Overall, our results provide support to the presence of both developmental paths in the case of Greece while the Greek regions might be categorized as dynamic, stagnant, and unstable.
Highlights
Social capital is widely acknowledged as a multidimensional leverage that might assist societies in achieving highly desirable socio-economic outcomes such as growth, health, happiness, etc
The present study analyzes social capital as a regional stock of capital that interacts with the economic goals of each region and shapes their success in achieving these goals
We propose a model for the identification of the interactions between regional social capital and regional growth as leading to either a virtuous spiral or a vicious cycle model of development
Summary
Social capital is widely acknowledged as a multidimensional leverage that might assist societies in achieving highly desirable socio-economic outcomes such as growth, health, happiness, etc. (see indicatively, [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]). Economic research has largely focused upon identifying the essence of this particular form of ‘capital’ as articulated in market transactions and the production of value in societies [1,8] This strand of research has verified the workings of social capital as a productive resource, in as far as socio-cultural features such as trust, networks, and norms/values, are linked to the economic growth and welfare of societies [1,2,3,4,8,9,10]. Analyzing the effect of social capital on local development processes in the European periphery Pisani et al [20] suggest that social capital contributes to the observed heterogeneity in regional socio-economic outcomes while they call social capital as still being a ‘black box’
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