The Impact Of Education On Economic Growth: The Case Of Mauritius

This paper focuses on the impact of investment in education on economic growth in Mauritius. It is an attempt to explore the extent to which education level of the Mauritian labour force affects its economic growth that is its output level. We have used the Cobb-Douglas production function with constant returns to scale where human capital is treated as an independent factor of production in the human capital augmented growth model. We expect to contribute to the existing literature by bringing evidence from a data set for the period 1990 to 2006 obtained from the central statistical office and Bank of Mauritius reports. The results reveal that human capital plays an important role in economic growth mainly as an engine for improvement of the output level. There is compelling evidence that human capital increases productivity, suggesting that education really is productivity-enhancing rather than just a device that individuals use to signal their level of ability to the employer

Impact of Economic and Financial Development on Environmental Degradation: Evidence from Small Island Developing States (SIDS)

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of economic and financial development (FD) on environmental degradation (ED) for a sample of 12 selected small island developing states for the period 20002016 using a panel vector autoregressive model which accounts for the issue of dynamism and endogeneity. Results from the long-run cointegration analysis confirmed that GDP per capita has a negative and significant impact on emissions implying that higher degree of economic development decreases the ED for our sample of island economies. The smaller long-run income elasticity as compared to the short run validates the environment Kuznets curve hypothesis. Although an insignificant impact of FD on CO2 emissions is reported, the joint effect of economic and FD on the environment indicates that FD will have an affirmative influence on the environment with island economies attaining a relatively good income level as well

Risks to future atoll habitability from climate-driven environmental changes

© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC. Recent assessments of future risk to atoll habitability have focused on island erosion and submergence, and have overlooked the effects of other climate-related drivers, as well as differences between ocean basins and island types. Here we investigate the cumulative risk arising from multiple drivers (sea-level rise; changes in rainfall, ocean–atmosphere oscillations and tropical cyclone intensity; ocean warming and acidification) to five Habitability Pillars: Land, Freshwater supply, Food supply, Settlements and infrastructure, and Economic activities. Risk is assessed for urban and rural islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, under RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, in 2050 and 2090, and considering a moderate adaptation scenario. Risks will be highest in the Western Pacific which will experience increased island destabilization together with a high threat to freshwater, and decreased land-based and marine food supply from reef-dependent fish and tuna and tuna-like resources. Risk accumulation will occur at a lower rate in the Central Pacific (lower pressure on land, with more limited cascading effects on other Habitability Pillars; increase in pelagic fish stocks) and the Central Indian Ocean (mostly experiencing increased land destabilization and reef degradation). Risk levels will vary significantly between urban islands, depending on geomorphology and local shoreline disturbances. Rural islands will experience less contrasting risk levels, but higher risks than urban islands in the second half of the century. This article is categorized under: Trans-Disciplinary Perspectives > Regional Reviews.Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie, Grant/Award Number: 20ESC0016; Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Grant/Award Numbers: ANR-15-CE03-0003, ANR-10-LABX-14-01; Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation; David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 2019-68336; DFAT-funded Australia-Pacific Climate Partnership; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Grant/Award Number: GBMF5668.02; The Ocean Solutions Initiative supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Veolia Foundation, and the French Facility for Global Environment; The Royal Society; Walton Family Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 2018-137