Trust And Regional Economic Performance In South Korea

This paper investigates the role of Trust as the most important factor of Social capital on economic development in the South Korea regions during the 2003-2014 periods.In the literature,the empirical study between social capital and economic development in South Korean regions has not been studied well.This paper focuses on analyzing the economic effect of Trust using indicator of Trust from the Korean General Social Survey(KGSS)for sample of South Korean 16 regional economies.Following a panel data approached with fixed effect model,empirical research shows that Trust impacts positively on GDP per capita in the case of the South Korean regions.The empirical finding is that Trust level as a social capital plays an economic role for the different South Korea regions.Also,this paper explores the determinants of trust such as gender,age,education level and religious belief,using logistic model with the data set for the period 2004 to 2014 from Korean General Social Surveys(KGSS).The finding revealed that education level,marital status,religious belief and political ideology are strong determinants of trust in South Korea.