Theoretically, human capital is conclusively believed to be positively related with economic growth. While empirically, the said relationship does not always hold for several reasons. Thus, the current paper presents new results on a set of conditions under which human capital is robustly and positively associated with economic growth. Using data for 132 countries over 15 years, the empirical results reveal that human capital plays a positive role in per capita GDP growth only in the presence of better economic opportunities and high-quality legal institutions. In fact, economic opportunities reinforce the effect of human capital on growth: the easier it is to do business and trade domestically or internationally, the stronger the effect of human capital on growth. In conclusion, the findings suggest that inconclusive results in previous empirical studies on human capital and growth might be due to omitted variable bias as these studies do not include variables related to social capabilities.

Climate change has now become a reality that has intensified the sufferings of people living in arid ecosystems. Decrease in rainfall, rise in temperature and increase in the frequency of extreme events are some of the changes observed in the semi-arid desert of district Tharparkar. For thousands of years, people of Tharparkar are coping with drought and aridity of the land by using indigenous knowledge. However, global changes in the climatic pattern and deterioration of social and economic conditions have pushed the inhabitants of this arid region into extreme vulnerable situation. This paper investigates the link between climate-induced natural disasters, particularly drought, from the perspective of changing climate patterns which have resulted in food insecurity and water scarcity. The paper analyses the rainfall pattern in the last 38 years—dividing it into two periods i.e. from 1975-1994 and 1995-2014. The findings of the paper have challenged the prevailing notions about aridity and rainfall patterns in Tharparkar district. The research found that there is an increase in average annual precipitation in the district with erratic patterns. Thus, the nature of drought in the district has changed from its historic pattern of less or no rainfall to more but erratic rainfall that is more threatening to livelihoods of the people that in turn have multiplier effect on water and food insecurity. In particularly, women are more vulnerable in the absence of social security and lack of basic necessities for their survival amidst drought. For instance, traditionally the burden of managing water resources falls on women, which leads to an increased work load during the time of drought and also water scarcity. JEL Classification: Q54, Q56, Q25, I30 Keywords: Climate, Environment and Development, Drought, Water, Poverty

Economists agree that human capital is an important determinant of economic growth [Arrow (1962); Aghion and Howitt (1992)]. Human capital-led growth generally concludes the positive impact of the two with the help of existing developed theories and empirical evidences. Nonetheless, the standard empirical result of a direct relationship between human capital (however measured) and economic growth, has been criticised on several fronts. First, the impact of other growth-related factors like quality of education, health of the labour force, inflation, corruption, unemployment, rule of law, etc. should not be ignored. These endogenous characteristics of a country are included in Becker‘s (1993) definition of human capital. In addition, as noted by Abramovitz (1986), social capabilities are important in the adoption and diffusion of technologies but countries differ in social capabilities. Therefore, to the extent to which human capital contributes to economic growth through innovation, its effect is conditioned by the country‘s social capabilities which include factors like quality of institutions and governance.

This study is an attempt to analyze the impact of Edible

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The paper examines the effect of diversification on social welfare in South Asia using the macroeconomic data for the period 1996–2011, with export diversification as a proxy of economic diversification. In this paper, three types of diversification are assessed (i.e. related, unrelated, and overall variety). While unrelated variety and overall variety show increasing trend over the years, related variety seems to show a non-linear inverted U-shaped curve. Estimation results reveal that all three types of variety have a positive and significant relationship with human development in South Asia, which shows that diversification is beneficial for human development in South Asian countries. It is also found that the existing level of human capital significantly moderates the relationship between related variety and social welfare.

<span>Aggregate Real Private Consumption (ARPC) is one of the major components of the Gross <span>Domestic Product (GDP)that contributes to specify any economy’s long term living standards. The <span>contribution of ARPC stands on an average around 55%. It is therefore important to understand the <span>components of the consumption which is almost more than half of the aggregate economic expenditure. <span>The study is an attempt to make a case for developing countries to bring policy level changes in order to <span>determine the consumption pattern of developing countries’ GDP. Using appropriate empirical model the <span>study investigates the validity of Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) and Absolute Income Hypothesis <span>(AIH)on ARPC for selected developed economies. The results of the study reveals that the important <span>determinants of ARPC in the long-run are real GDP and wealth, while in the short-run they are real <span>interest rate and unemployment rate.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span>

This paper reflects critically on the results of a vulnerability assessment process at the household and community scale using a quantitative vulnerabilities and capacities index. It validates a methodology for a social vulnerability assessment at the local scale in 62 villages across four agro‐ecological/livelihood zones in Sindh Province, Pakistan. The study finds that the move from vulnerability narratives to numbers improves the comparability and communicational strength of the concept. The depth and nuance of vulnerability, however, can be realised only by a return to narrative. Caution is needed, therefore: the index can be used in conjunction with qualitative assessments, but not instead of them. More substantively, the results show that vulnerability is more a function of historico‐political economic factors and cultural ethos than any biophysical changes wrought by climate. The emerging gendered vulnerability picture revealed extremes of poverty and a lack of capacity to cope with contemporary environmental and social stresses.