Asymmetric effects of long-term war on human resource development in Af…ghanistan: evidence from NARDL approach

This study explores the effects of war on human resource development in Afghanistan using non-linear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) and asymmetric causality analysis. The results of the NARDL bound test support an asymmetric long-run relationship between predictors. It reveals that positive and negative shocks from the per capita cost of war, child mortality rate, and population growth rate asymmetrically affect the school enrollment rate in both the short and long runs. Furthermore, it shows that positive shocks from per capita GDP and per capita government expenditures on education increase the school enrollment rate, while their negative shocks have adverse effects, in both the short and long runs. This implies that school enrollment is highly sensitive to changes in the per capita cost of war and reacts swiftly. Moreover, the results reveal significant causality from both the positive and negative components of the per capita cost of war, per capita GDP, per capita government expenditures on education, and population growth to both the positive and negative components of the school enrollment rate. However, there is only a causal nexus from the negative component of the child mortality rate to the school enrollment rate. Based on these findings, relevant policy implications are discussed. © The Author(s) 2024.