Title: Protecting human development: a search for an effective policy - a comparative cross country study of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

Authors: Abeer Khandker

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, ASA University, ASA Tower, 23/3, Bir Uttam Nuruzzaman Sarak, Shyamoli, Mohammadpur, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh

Abstract: Protecting the human development of the young population of a country from aggregate economic shocks requires a rigorous empirical analysis of the effects economic crises have on human development. Individual country studies are available in this area, but regional aggregate studies are rare. This study tries to fill this gap by analysing the effects of business cycles on the human development of the young population in the Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian region. Using cross sectional and panel data, the basic conclusion of the empirical analysis of this paper is that economic crises generally have a tendency to affect the human development through the incomes of the people as well as through decreases in public expenditure. The impact, however, differs across the regions. But one thing is clear - there has to be a new policy which decreases the burden of public expenditure on human development, such as through policies like CCTs. So, a new policy model has been suggested in this paper in order to decrease the burden on the government as well as introduce some self-sustaining mechanisms in those policies.

Keywords: human development; education; South Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa; cross-country study; young population; economic shocks; economic crises; public expenditure; self-sustaining mechanisms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2014.061458

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2014 Vol.5 No.2, pp.172 - 193

Received: 07 Jan 2014
Accepted: 02 Feb 2014
Published online: 21 Jun 2014 *

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