The transition of the »Old Communist« countries of East and Central Europe has been disappointingly slow given the amount of physical and human capital available at the start of the <p> transition. We argue that this slowness is caused by the lack of social capital, which is an <p> important factor...</p></p>

Social capital is defined as mutual trust. It is related to production by a key hypothesis: social capital determines how easily people work together. An easy-to-use proxy (Putnam's Instrument) is the density of voluntary organizations. Social capital might be a new production factor which must...