Investigating the Impact of Media Freedom on the Human Development Index of Southwest Asia Countries with a Dynamic Approach

The impact of a free press on development may never have been properly assessed. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to calculate such an effect. However, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of media freedom on the Human Development Index (HDI) in a group of 21 countries in Southwest Asia in the annual period from 2002 to 2020. To investigate and measure this relationship, the dynamic panel data econometrics method and the generalized two-stage system torque (SGMM) approach have been used. The results of the specified model show that media freedom has a positive and significant effect on the human development index and with one unit increase in the media freedom index, the human development index increases by 4.290 units. Also, other variables of this study, such as GDP per capita and the number of Internet users, increase the human development index by one percent to 2.290 and 6.101 units, respectively, and therefore a positive and significant relationship for both variables was obtained. In addition, the variable of the corruption control index has a negative and significant effect on the human development index and with one unit increase in the corruption control index, the human development index will decrease by 0.006 units