Forecasting of Gross Domestic Product for South Asian Countries Dr. Kavita Pabreja Maharaja Surajmal Institute (affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University), New Delhi, India kavita_pabreja@rediffail.com Abstract. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of the most important indica- tors to understand the economical status of an economy. Economic analysis pro- vides an insight into the essentials of an economy. It is an organized process for determining the optimum use of scarce resources and selecting the best alterna- tive to achieve the economic goal. The economic health of a country depends upon many factors viz. Human resources, natural resources, capita formation, technological development and social and political factors. The objective of this study is to find out correlation among health, climate, and education related in- dicators of various south-asian countries, select the reduced subset of indicators and then forecast GDP, using indicators collected from officially documented international sources. Keywords: Gross Domestic Product, Health, Education, Development, Correla- tion, Artificial Neural Network. 1 Introduction The economic development of any nation is closely associated with the increase in the utilization and burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas by factories and elec - tric power plants, motor vehicles, and family units. The consequential carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have turned into the largest source of greenhouse gases that do not allow the infrared radiation from the earth to leave the atmosphere and build the risk of global warming [1]. It has been recommended that every country must put in ef- forts to reduce the CO2 emissions for the sake of its citizens. These emissions affect the agriculture directly that in turn brings adverse effects on the economy of a country. As suggested by Smith [2], a little enhancement in average temperature worldwide (approximate change of 2ºC, calculated with reference to year 1990 temperature readings) would cause in net negative impacts on GDP of various developing countries and net positive market impacts on GDP of several developed economies. As a result, this would increase gaps in the income disparity among coun- tries across the globe. Health of people of a country plays a significant role in its growth and development. The importance of Adult Survival Rate on growth rates for poor countries has been discussed by [3]. The authors discussed that other parameters of health such as disease occurrence rates and cognitive functioning are imperative for sustaining a balanced provision of trained manpower which is a vital component for growth of economy. In another study, the authors have examined the role of health to economic growth [4] and concluded that good health effects the economic growth of a nation in a construc- tive and numerically significant way. Education is one of the most dominant mechanism for decreasing poverty and in- equality and lays a basis for continual economic growth. The effect of education on GDP has been studied by [5]. The authors argued that the skills available in the labour 1
force and the value of those skills are important determinants of economic perfor-