POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT An Empirical Investigation for Asian Countries

The main objective of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of political economy indicators on human development in selected Asian countries from 1990 to 2012. After collection of data on all variables, different panel econometric techniques have been applied for empirical investigation and results indicate that investment profile is the major contributor and law and order is the second contributor to human development but the coefficient of control of corruption is positive with insignificant value. These findings are consistent in overall, above median and below median HDI countries. Government stability and bureaucratic quality coefficients are negative and significant in overall and above median countries, but some values are insignificant in low HDI countries. After introducing some control variables, findings are consistent, but ICT gives much different results. In presence of ICT, all indicators of political economy are positively contributing to overall and above median HDI countries, but not in below median HDI countries of Asia. This is because ICT requires the minimum threshold level to become effective in the promotion of human development.