The Role of Poverty, Food Security, and Rapid Population Growth on Human Development in Pakistan

Abstract

This study examines the relationships among poverty, food security, rapid populationgrowth, and human development in Pakistan over 1990-2018 to achieve the targets ofSustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1: No poverty and 2: Zero Hunger. The study appliestime series based econometric approaches, which have the ability to incorporate regime shifts inthe estimation process. The Zivot and Andrews unit root test is supplied for first-orderintegration, Bound, and Gregory Hansen cointegration tests to support the cointegrationrelationship among the variables. Similarly, the results obtained from autoregressive distributedlags (ARDL) stated that food security and income growth simultaneously increase humandevelopment in Pakistan. In contrast, the role of rapid population growth is negatively affectinghuman development in the country. The results from fully modified ordinary least squares(FMOLS) and canonical cointegrating regression (CCR) are simultaneously supporting theresults of ARDL. The estimates of Granger causality revealed that income is unilaterally, andpopulation growth is bi-directionally, causing human development in Pakistan. Similarly, thecausality from human development to food security is also unidirectional. Finally, the studyinforms policymakers to devise effective policy guidelines for achieving the targets of SDGs 1and 2 for Pakistan.