Macroeconomic and Socioeconomic Determinants of Economic Growth: An Empirical Examination of South Asian Economies

Abstract

Economic growth is not a new phenomenon; empiric is filled with studies from the preceding two centuries that examined growth. The new thing in this analysis is that this study considers growth determinants for south Asian economies. The reason behind this selection is that most of the studies didn’t consider a combined analysis of these states. In this regard, this paper has examined seven explanatory variables that are unemployment, Access to electricity, domestic credit to the private sector, foreign direct investment, inflation, and total debt while gross domestic product as a dependent variable has been examined. To prove these determinants' role statistically, PMG/ARDL (Pooled Mean Group Auto-Regressive Distributed Lagged Model) test has been utilized. Estimates provoked a statistically significant role of these determinates in economic growth determination.