Bangladesh: building for a better future?

Abstract

Since independence in 1971, Bangladesh has undergone episodes of change and has recorded considerable economic achievements. In this study, a standard regression model is used to identify factors that significantly contribute to economic growth in Bangladesh. The factors under consideration are private and public investment, public and private consumption, export and import. All factors are found to have a significant positive relationship with GDP at 5 percent of significance level except for public investment. The result implies that privatisation process needs to be catered with greater attention for accelerating GDP growth. Import is found to be significant but with a negative relationship with GDP. The result indicates that with the increased in import, the GDP will decline further. As a matter of fact, more than 60 percent of the imported items are for consumption purposes which is not likely to contribute much to GDP growth. From the empirical estimation, it is suggested that prudence planning should be taken to enhance private investment, export, private and public consumption for a better living in the country.

Citation

Hossain, S. and Cheng, M. (2002), "Bangladesh: building for a better future?", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 29 No. 10, pp. 813-821. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068290210444449