The consensus in growth literature has recognized the significant effects of institutions (including social capital and political institutions) towards economic growth. Utilizing the World Value Survey (WVS)’s trust variable that has often been used to represent social capital, and employing...

This study augments a standard growth model with institutional controls, and models the spatial dependence using geographical and institutional weight matrices. Spatial Durbin model is shown to be the most appropriate to describe the data and political institutions weight matrix best explains...