Transnational corporations, human resource development and growth

Abstract

Human development is linked to economic growth through the relationship between human resources and production as well as the relationship between human welfare and consumption. Improvements in the quality of human resources through investments in health, education and training enhance the stock of human capital and increase the productivity of labour and other factors of production. Human resources are thus important determinants of economic growth. But human beings are not only “instruments for furthering commodity production...they are also ultimate ends and beneficiaries of the process.” While greater investment in human development as a factor input contributes to economic growth, the resultant improved quality of life of the people of a nation is also an end in itself. Economic growth can thus be viewed as dependent upon, as well as a means for, human development, which includes human resource development or the development of human beings as productive agents as well as the development of human beings as the final consumers of goods and services.