Contribution of International Trade in Human Development of Pakistan

Abstract

Very few studies have attempted to examine the relationship between international trade and human development. Some panel and cross-section studies have been done, but mostly Pakistan has not been included. This study examines for the first time ever the effect of aggregate and disaggregate trade on human development in Pakistan by using annual time series data from 1980 to 2013. This study contains five models in which human development with (a) total trade, (b) aggregate exports, (c) aggregate imports, (d) exports of primary commodities, semi-manufactured goods and manufactured goods and (e) imports of consumer goods, imports of capital goods, industrial raw material of consumer goods and industrial raw material for capital goods is considered. Cointegration test has been applied to check the long-run relationship between human development and trade. Sensitivity analysis confirms that initial results are robust. Causality analysis has also been done for the causal relationship between international trade and human development.