You will, no doubt, be glad to hear that today I do not intend to get into too much of the nitty gritty of the definitional and measurement issues around social capital. But, as a concept that can sometimes be loosely defined, I think it is important to be clear about what I mean when I talk about it.
As I mentioned, and perhaps not surprisingly for a central banker, trust and credibility are the aspects of social capital that I will focus on today.5 There is a mutually reinforcing connection between trust and credibility and a central bank’s goals.