Abstract
Human development and economic growth are believed to be linked in several ways. This paper aims at examining the plausible nexus among human development and economic growth in a comparative setup between Bangladesh and Pakistan. The study was based on systematic study of available records, mainly data from the World Bank and examined the linkages among per capita GDP, total spending on health and public spending on education within an econometric framework, where descriptive statistics and least square technique were used to accomplish the study. Bangladesh in spite of its narrow resource base as compared to Pakistan has been spending fairly a larger share of its GDP on health to attain better health of its population as compared to that of Pakistan, while both the countries' public spending on education has been more or less stable but less than 3 percent of their GDP, where Pakistan has been spending slightly a larger share on education than Bangladesh. Although both the countries are lacking in skilled, flexible and healthy human capital, Pakistan has been lacking far behind in investing in human capital that have produced mixed impacts on economic growth of two countries. Bangladesh achieved a dramatic improvement in reducing its women fertility rate and improving life expectancy at birth, while Pakistan's achievement was not up to the mark. Therefore, to build a knowledge driven society, it requires the citizens to be transformed into educated, skilled and competent human capital through higher education and better health. This requires greater investment in human development that will require substantial budgetary intervention and improved quality of governance.