Investigating the Factors of Non-Realizing Sustainable Economic Growth in Terms of Social Capital in Iran,s Economy

This research has examined the factors of non-realizing sustainable economic growth in terms of social capital in Iran's economy. For this purpose, at first, the provinces of the country were categorized into three regions, based on six individual trust-sensitive key economic variables (including Entrepreneurship, Level of Education , Employment, Per capita Real Production, Labour Productivity, and Female Labour Market Participation) ,by using the clustering and discriminant analysis methods. Then, the effect of five social capital variables (including Social, Economic, Immoral, Acute Social, and Family disorders) which reflect the lack of trust and consequently reduction of social capital, was estimated on each of the six economic variables, by using the panel data method in the years 2005-2017.The findings showed that the decrease in social capital, with high explanatory power, had a significant effect on economic performance and each of the six economic variables had been at least influenced by one of the mentioned disorders decreasingly. The two of variables, labour productivity and entrepreneurship, which are important factors in the sustainability of economic growth, have suffered the most negative impact. Also, the findings showed the synergistic effect of the reduction of social capital on economic performance in the next period. Therefore, the decrease in social capital with the effect on the key economic variables which are the most important qualitative and quantitative activities in economy, has caused the reduction of social efficiency in relations of the abundant production factors of Iran’s economy and as a result, non-realizing sustainable economic growth during the time.