THE IMPACT OF EDUCATION AND HEALTH ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA (1980-2011)

This paper aims at investigating the impact of education and health on economic growth by incorporating energy consumption as an important factor of production function in case of Romania during the period 1980-2011. Using ARDL bounds testing and Johansen-Juselius approaches for cointegration, the results show that the variables are cointegrated. In addition, economic growth is mainly determined by health, energy consumption and education in the long-run. Using Toda-Yamamoto causality test, the results show that there is a long-run causation linkage running from health and energy consumption to economic growth. Therefore, this paper provides an empirical evidence that supports human capital-based growth hypothesis. The findings reveal some policy implications for Romania.