Abstract:

Human development is a development policy that brings a different perspective to economic development, puts people at its center, and aims to increase people’s welfare and living standards. With human development, it is aimed for individuals to lead a healthy life, receive a qualified education, access, and use the necessary resources to live a quality life. The Human Development Index has started to be widely used in the measurement of human development, as economic growth is not sufficient in the measurement of human development and a different tool is needed to measure the level of welfare. Identifying the factors affecting the Human Development Index guide countries in detecting appropriate policies and tools to achieve the human development goal. In this study, in order to determine the factors affecting human development in Turkey, in the period of 2000-2019, the effects of public education expenditures, public health expenditures and income inequality on the Human Development Index were examined with the Toda-Yamamoto causality test and ARDL analysis. The findings obtained from the causality test show that, in Turkey during the period under review, there is a causality relationship from only public health expenditures to the Human Development Index. As a result of the ARDL analysis performed to determine the long-term relationship between the variables, it was determined that the effect of public health expenditures on the Human Development Index was negative. It has been detected that in the long-term public education expenditures and income inequality do not have a significant effect on the Human Development Index.

Keywords: