SOCIAL CAPITAL AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL

Abstract

Social capital is an intangible element that is found in social relations and can act as a shaper of effective collective and individual actions. It is hoped that the greater its presence in a larger region is also the levels of economic development. The main objective is to verify if there are relations between levels of social capital and human development in Brazilian municipalities and regions. Methodologically, this research was created the Social Capital Index (SCI) and applied in all Brazilian municipalities. The result found shows that the level of social capital is low, but with many regional variations. Another important result was to demonstrate that the similarity of other interactional studies on social capital made in the world found in the Brazilian case a positive correlation between social capital, human capital and human development.