THE MA£OPOLSKA SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS IN TARNÓW RESEARCH PAPERS COLLECTION, ISSUE 2 (16)/2010

Culture as an economic growth factor K e y w o r d s: economic growth, culture, factors of the growth, social trust S u m m a r y: The article considers a culture as an important factor of economic growth. A cul-ture is understood as the environment for social and economic performance. It’s presenting three theories which perceive a culture as an influential component for economic life. The starting point is the Francis Fukuyama’s point of view about the meaning of social trust. Then in that con-text it’s zooming on Mariano Grondona and Jacenty Siewierski theories. The economic growth of countries is obviously uneven. Despite the convergence theory, similar environmental conditionings, economic regimes etc.—the economic performances might be very different, what can be noticed in the examples of Greece, Portugal, Hungary and many others. Perhaps a reason for this situation is culture, which—by creating different milieus for the same growth factors—is evoking dis-tinct action. The main purpose of this article is to show the need of considering culture as an important growth factor as well as to present the ways of research and analyse eco-nomic growth in the context of a culture. 1. The basic factors in economic growth Economic growth is usually taken to refer to an increase in a nation’s capacity to produce goods and services. Among the basic factors underlying this phenomena, the most obvious is productivity, which directly affects the level of GDP. However, pro-ductivity itself depends upon several factors of production: Depending on the economic school and historical period, these factors of produc-tion may differ. The physiocratism was considering a meaning of capital, land, labou