Exploring the concept of social capital

Social capital has been widely discussed across the social sciences in recent years. It provides a supporting environment to one another helping solve problems together. Social capital improves economic performance by a number of ways: a) increasing the number of mutually beneficial trades, b) solving collective action problems, c) reducing monitoring and transactions costs, and d) improving the flow of information. The paper provides a detailed overview of the definition, types and determinants of social capital.