Measuring the Impact of Government Expenditure on Higher Education and its Relationship to Economic Growth in Iraq for the Period (2000-2015)

Abstract

The study aims to analyze the impact of the higher education sector in the indicators of economic growth in Iraq through economatric models in in a multiple regression method.The results of the Pearson correlation coefficient were as follows: The relationship between expenditure on higher education and gross domestic product (GDP) was positive and insignificant, and the relation between gross fixed capital formation and gross domestic product (GDP) was positive and significant,while the relationship between the labor force and GDP was positive and insignificant. The results of the economatric analysis showed that the relationship between expenditure on higher education and GDP is positive but not significant according to t-test, because there is no efficiency in the distribution of the financial resource represented by government expenditure on higher education , Due to the lack of efficiency in the distribution of the financial resource for government expenditure on higher education, although current expenditures on higher education represent the largest proportion of government expenditure,with the low proportion of investment spending on higher education. The relationship between the gross fixed capital formation ratio of GDP and GDP is positive and moral, while the relationship between the labor force and GDP is positive but not significant. The research presented a number of proposals, the most important of which is the following: the government should increase its expenditure on higher education by the volume of public expenditure because of its impact on the indicators of economic growth.It also contributes to the development and activation of the relationship between educational institutions and state enterprises and their productive institutions to benefit from scientific expertise and competencies in the field of developing these institutions,and develop plans to change the curricula of education to catch up with the development of developed countries.