Investing in Social and Intellectual Capital: A Public–Private Partnership Issue

Social and intellectual capital are relatively new concepts in assessing the overall competitiveness of global and European economies. As intangible capitals they represent the superior outcome of interactions between traditional economics, business administration, behavioral and institutional economics. Based on reviewing the main models, our paper proposes a somewhat extended, different framework on three dimensions: (a) good governance, (b) the relationship education—business environment, as initial ‘point of contact’ between the public and business environment interests, and (c) the capacity to form meaningful coalitions and partnerships between the public and the private sector. A slight focus-shift regarding the contents and purposes of public–private partnerships is necessary by “thinking outside the box” regarding what public–private partnerships are currently. Based on our methodology and statistical-mathematic analysis, it might be observed that creating and developing these intangible capitals in public–private partnership cooperation forms is strongly related to beneficial labor market and societal outcomes.