Meta-Analysis of Studies on the Relationship between Social Capital and Economic Development in Iran in the Last Two Decades

Through the utilization of a meta-analysis approach, the present study aimed to assess the collective findings of research conducted in the past two decades regarding the relationship between social capital and economic development in Iran. A preliminary examination of the existing literature within this domain revealed the presence of contradictions and disparities. While certain studies indicated a positive correlation between social capital and economic development, others had yielded contradictory outcomes, demonstrating negative correlations between these two variables. Consequently, the need for a meta-analysis arose. To prevent the conflation of levels of analysis and the associated fallacies, this study solely concentrated on intermediate levels of analysis when defining concepts and selecting studies that considered both social variables of capital and economic development.

The research employed the meta-analysis method, a systematic approach that integrates the findings of multiple studies and applies targeted statistical methods to derive new and consistent results. The unit of analysis for this study was scientific research articles obtained from bibliographic databases. The statistical population consisted of articles that explored the correlation between social capital and economic development. The research was specifically focused on Persian studies conducted within Iran over the past two decades. This temporal limitation was implemented to emphasize the most recent findings within the field of inquiry, while the spatial limitation aimed to narrow the research problem to the relationship between the two variables within Iran. Due to the strict inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis, the research encountered sampling limitations. Initially, an extensive keyword search yielded 85 relevant articles. Among these, 27 articles were purely theoretical and 9 articles employed non-statistical methods. The remaining articles either did not provide the necessary statistics or utilized statistical approaches that did not conform to the criteria for meta-analysis. Consequently, out of the 36 articles that utilized statistical tests, only 13 met the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis.

After thoroughly examining and extracting the necessary data from each study, we initially investigated the presence of publication bias. To accomplish this, we employed funnel plots, Begg and Mazumdar’s tests, and Egger's regression intercept. The results of these tests indicated the absence of publication bias. Subsequently, we assessed the assumption of homogeneity, which revealed heterogeneity among the studies. Thus, a model of random effects was employed to calculate the overall effect size. According to Cohen's interpretation system, the overall effect size was determined to be 0.304, indicating a moderate relationship between social capital and economic development.In the subsequent stage of the meta-analysis, we explored the moderating variables that potentially contributed to the heterogeneity of the results. This exploration involved a comprehensive review and comparison of the included studies. Three moderatingvariables, namely "publication year", "research method", and "operationalization of social capital" were incorporated into the model. All three variables significantly influenced the identification of heterogeneity among the studies. However, it became evident that these variables were not independent of one another. In general, studies that emphasized social trust and cooperation among local groups when measuring social capital reported an inverse relationship between social capital and economic development. Conversely, studies that emphasized institutional trust and the potential for participation in social institutions and organizations in addition to group trust when operationalizing the variable of social capital indicated a positive correlation between the aforementioned variables. Therefore, based on our examination of the moderating variables and the obtained results, we proposed a new hypothesis: the disparity in research outcomes stems from the emphasis on different dimensions of social capital. While a specific definition of social capital that highlights trust within local groups is often perceived as an obstacle to development, an alternative definition of the same concept that focuses on individuals' participation in non-traditional institutions promotes development.