Social capital has been shown to affect present and future economic growth via the well-functioning of institutions or the efficiency of coordinated actions. This project develops new social capital indicators for the distant past, when surveys are not available. It explores the interactions between geography, social development indicators and economic development in an international set of countries from all continents, with the aim of achieving social capital indicators that are comparable across countries for the distant past. It also explores the link between social capital and prospective economic growth.