Corruption and Social Capital Development

The aim of the work was to present the relationship between the development of social capital and corruption on the basis of new growth and knowledge management theories. Corruption was regarded in this work as a brake on the country’s productivity growth through its impact on the rate and quality of structural changes in an economy, and therefore its welfare. The article discussed possible damages caused by corruption to the efforts in the development of social capital, especially in public administration, which could include, for example, fall in different types of standards and mutual trust of social life participants. Based on the studies of international institutions as World Bank, World Economic Forum and Legatum Institute was also analyzed the relationship between selected indicators of corruption and social capital levels on a group of 104 countries by means of statistical methods in 2009–2010. The results confirmed the presence of co-dependence between an increase in social capital level and a decline of corruption scale in the surveyed countries.