Assessment of the role of social capital in stimulating economic development depending on the country's income level

Purpose: Assessing the impact of eleven components of social capital (SC) on economic development depending on the country's income level. Design/methodology/approach: The research covered 96 countries. They were divided in three groups composed of 32 economies, i.e., low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries. The impact of eleven elements of SC was examined in the period 2008-2020. The economic development measures were GDP pc and GNI pc. The research methods were the Spearman's rank correlation and cluster analysis. Findings: Social capital in high-income countries is a more important factor in increasing economic development compared to low-income and middle-income countries. In three income groups, the same four components of SC are statistically significant and positive: government effectiveness as defined by the World Bank, reliance on professional management, state of cluster development and willingness to delegate authority. These dimensions of social capital can be called strategic success factors on the road to prosperity. Research limitations/implications: The main limitations are the availability of data on larger groups of countries over a sufficient long time and obtainig free access to more detailed social capital indicators. In the future, the authors intend to focus on the links between various components of SC occurring at different stages of economic development. This knowledge should help to formulate more precise guidelines for planning policies of improving SC in private and public sectors. Social implications: The research results indicate that such dimension of SC as honesty, egalitarianism, equality of treatment, and democratic decision making should be adopted as patterns of behaviour in both private and public sectors and in cooperation between them. Without this, social development, which includes economic development, cannot be accelerated. This happens because it is reflected in improving the effectiveness of organisational arrangements applied at the national level and in companies. Originality/value: There is still a need for more comprehensive research on the impact of social capital on economic development. In response to this need, this study examined eleven components of SC. The hope is that this research approach will result in a more holistic view of how social capital can influence economic development.