In this modern era, the importance of information and communication technology (ICT) cannot be ignored for sustainable human development. However, Pakistan has experienced a considerable gap between ICT economic growth and human development. In this regard, this study has modeled the relationship between ICT, economic growth, and the human development index (HDI) considering urbanization, foreign direct investment (FDI), and trade for the period from 1990 to 2014. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and vector error correction model (VECM) approaches are used to analyze the data. The empirical results reveal that ICT promote human development index. Along with, economic growth has a positive and significant impact on human development. Besides, urbanization, trade, and FDI discourage human development in Pakistan. Finally, bidirectional causality is detected between the aforementioned variables. Recommendations to policymakers regarding the productive role of FDI and trade are provided.
Keywords: ARDL; Human development index; ICT; Pakistan.