Social Capital as a Factor of Economic Growth in the Regions of Russia

Социальный капитал как фактор экономического роста российских регионов

Kosarev, Vladimir (Косарев, Владимир) (), Pavlov, Pavel (Павлов, Павел) () and Kaukin, Andrey (Каукин, Андрей) ()
Additional contact information
Kosarev, Vladimir (Косарев, Владимир): Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Gaidar Institute for Economic
Pavlov, Pavel (Павлов, Павел): Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Kaukin, Andrey (Каукин, Андрей): Gaidar Institute for Economic

Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, 2019, vol. 5, 124-149

Abstract: This paper examines the influence of sociocultural factors of economic growth on economic development of the Russian regions. The article analyses the influence of various forms of social capital according to James Coleman (norms of trust between individuals, horizontal ties, social norms and values) on economic growth rates of the Russian regions. The paper uses an augmented neoclassical model of economic growth to test the hypotheses about the impact of the initial social capital distribution on the subsequent GRP growth rates in 2007–2016. Particular attention is paid to the selection of relevant tools for measuring the level of social capital of the Russian regions. The empirical specifications of the proposed theoretical model of regional economic growth were evaluated using the two-stage least squares regression (2SLS); the robustness check was carried out using the system generalized method of moments (system GMM). The results of econometric analysis show that the initial spatial distribution of generalized trust does not have a statistically significant effect on economic development. At the same time, the activity of lobbying groups (Olson groups) reduces the rate of economic growth in the regions of the Russian Federation. Increasing the level of civic cooperation (the willingness of citizens to unite to solve their own or social problems in the region) is associated with higher rates of economic development. For the selected study period, the economic significance of sociocultural factors is marginal relative to the significance of the fundamental neoclassical growth factors. Unlocking the potential of sociocultural factors of economic growth may suggest activating the processes of structural transformation of the Russian economy by increasing the economic importance of the private sector and SME segment.

Keywords: economic growth; regions of Russia; social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E13 O43 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://repec.ranepa.ru/rnp/ecopol/ep1938.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rnp:ecopol:ep1938

Access Statistics for this article

Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy is currently edited by Vladimir Mau

More articles in Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy from Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by RANEPA maintainer ().