Date of Award
Spring 5-5-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Department
Economics
First Advisor
Monica Das
Second Advisor
Smriti Tawari
Abstract
This paper seeks to 1. evaluate findings from previous literature that demonstrated evidence of social trust having a positive relationship with economic growth in the form of Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc) and 2. evaluate potential trust levels that can be used as a threshold for considering a country ‘high-trusting’ when conducting economic research. The study gathered data to measure social trust levels from World Values Survey where respondents answered yest to the question “most people can be trusted”. Then the study evaluated the relationship between trust and GDPpc with control variables including technology, education, labor, investment, and external balance (variables used found from World Development Indicators within World Bank data and described later). The study also ran regressions using two thresholds for high trust, one at 40% and another at 60%. This was done using dummy variables highTrust 40 and highTrust60. The results from the data demonstrate a positive relationship between social trust and GDPpc growth . There was also a demonstrated difference when passing the threshold of 40% trust but there is more research needed to determine the usefulnes of these findings.
Recommended Citation
Carey, Isaac, "A Study of the Impact of Social Trust on Economic Growth and Defining a Potential Threshold for ‘High Trust’ in Economic Research" (2024). Economics Student Theses and Capstone Projects. 170.
https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/econ_studt_schol/170