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Synergy or Trade-Off between Agricultural Growth and Nutrition Women’s Work and Care
Get PDFThis paper examines the implications of women‘s work in
agriculture and children‘s nutritional outcomes in Pakistan.
Agricultural growth is an important element of overall economic growth
and poverty reduction. It is generally presumed that growth in
agriculture will also lead to better nutrition through the higher
availability of nutritious foods and increased incomes for the poor.
Growth, however, might also imply changes in the amount of time and
effort women expend in agricultural work. This may have positive
outcomes for nutrition if women have access to their own income, but
might also have negative consequences if women‘s agricultural work
diminishes their ability to provide nutrition-related care for
themselves and their children. The cotton sector which relies very
largely on women‘s labour, particularly in harvesting [Siegmann and
Shaheen (2008)], can serve as a key vantage point for observing the link
between women‘s agricultural work, care and nutrition outcomes in
Pakistan. We first set the context for our research by discussing the
problem of under nutrition in Pakistan and why agriculture can play a
role in improving nutritional outcomes (Section 2). In Section 3, we
introduce the concept of care as it exists in the literature the
determinants of nutrition review the existing evidence on the
relationship between care and women‘s agricultural work. Empirical
findings from qualitative research in a cotton-growing region in
Pakistan are reported in Section 4. The paper concludes in Section 5
with discussion on how growth in agriculture can be made more
inclusi
Farmers’ Perceptions of Agricultural Land Values in Rural Pakistan
Get PDFPakistan’s agriculture sector is crucial because it is
responsible for providing food, shelter, and clothing to a massive
population of 180 million people which is growing at a rate of 2 percent
per annum. Land is a valuable asset and a symbol of prestige for the
rural population in Pakistan. According to the recent Pakistan Economic
Survey of 2013- 14, the agriculture sector contributes around 21 percent
to GDP and provides employment for around 45 percent of the work force,
who are primarily based in rural areas. The total geographic area of
Pakistan is approximately 79.6 million hectares. Around 27.7 percent of
Pakistan’s land is currently under cultivation and the cultivatable
waste lands offer good possibilities for crop production. The total
cropped area of Pakistan increased from 21.82 million hectares in
1990-91 to 22.72 million hectares in 2010-11 [Agricultural Statistics of
Pakistan (2010-11)] and the total population of Pakistan increased from
118 million to 175 million during the same time period. Similarly the
tenancy status of land management and land ownership pattern has changed
over time. For example, large landowners are shifting their preferences
from managing their land on their own towards leasing or sharecropping
the land to be managed by others [Agricultural Census
(2010)]
The Political Economy of Decentralisation and Access to Pro-poor Social Services Delivery in Pakistan
Get PDFA key argument made by several economists with respect to
decentralisation reform is that it can reduce poverty. This assertion is
based on the view that it leads to improvements in public sector
services delivery. The efficient provision of public goods by the local
governments may occur because of their ability to take into account
local determinants while providing services, such as health and
education [Oates (1972)]. It may also be due to competition, as local
governments encourage the provision of efficient public services to, and
lower tax burdens on the lower strata of society [Brennan and Buchanan
(1980)]
Out-migration in Rural Pakistan: Does Household Poverty Status Matter?
Get PDFMovement of the people within the geographical and
administrative boundaries of a country is known as internal migration.
Researchers regard the movement to urban areas from both rural and
less-advanced urban areas as more important, yet studying the dimensions
of movement between rural areas is worth investigating. Scholars assert
economic incentives as the main motive behind the rural-urban movement;
various unforeseeable factors, however, may also stimulate the human
flows. In Pakistan, the phenomenon of internal migration is as old as
the inception of the country as Helbock (1975a) maintained, while
studying life-time migrants in 12 largest cities of the country in 1961,
that almost every 7th person residing in these cities had come from a
different distric
Fulfilling the Pakistan Vision of Quaid-i-Azam (The Quaid-i-Azam Lecture)
No full textIn this lecture I will begin by suggesting that economic
equality is one of the founding principles of Pakistan in terms of the
explicitly stated view of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and also in
the Constitution of Pakistan. I will in section-II indicate the
analytical basis of growth policies followed by Pakistan’s policy-makers
in the decades after independence and the consequent inequality and mass
poverty that persist till today. In the next Section-III, I will discuss
recent research to lay the basis of an alternative perspective on
economic growth which can provide the framework for fulfilling the
Pakistan vision. In the final Section-IV, I will outline three main
features of a new inclusive development strategy. It will be argued that
if a prosperous future for Pakistan is to be achieved then a change in
the institutional structure is required whereby all of the people rather
than only a few have opportunities to fulfill their human potential.
Thus Pakistan can be placed on a new trajectory of sustained and
equitable growth
Determinants of Household Poverty: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan
Get PDFThe Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aim at halving the
percentage of world population in 1990 with income less than US $ 1 a
day and halving the share of people who suffer from hunger by 2015.
Being a developing nation, poverty reduction should be our foremost
obligation. An appreciable decline has occurred recently, headcount
decreased from 34.46 percent in 2000-01 to 23.94 in 2004-05 [Pakistan
(2006-07)]. However, seeing only the statistics and the trends in
poverty we can just observe that what happened to poverty in different
periods and also the decomposition of poverty in different years gives
us a more appropriate picture of the incidence of poverty. This
knowledge is useful because it informs us whether poverty is increasing
or decreasing overtime. However, this information does not provide us
the details of the causes of poverty. For instance, is poverty high due
to low education attainment or large family size or due to any other
reason? Here is a need of research about the determinants of poverty
that are positively or negatively linked with the poverty status. This
is the area where research can be most useful because firstly we have to
understand the main determinants of poverty before designing the most
efficient policy to reduce poverty in the country
Earnings Management And Privatisations: Evidence From Pakistan Evidence From Pakistan
No full textThis study examines the incidence of earnings management
around the time of the privatisation of State Owned Enterprises in
Pakistan during 1991-2005. Using the modified Jones model and a sample
of large privatisations (minimum US$1 million), it shows that the
sampled firms experienced increase in earnings, decrease in cash flows,
and increase in current discretionary accruals in the year prior to
and/or in the year of privatisation. The SOEs used both short term and
long term accruals to inflate reported earnings. These accruals were
reversed in the post-privatisation period. These findings suggest that
managers of the firms slated for privatisation were engaged in earnings
management to inflate their firms‘ financial worth to maximise the
privatisation proceeds. Hence, we cannot reject the incidence of
earnings management during privatisations in Pakistan. The results imply
that the investors should carefully evaluate the to-be-privatised firms
and keep in view the possibility of earnings management by the SOEs. JEL
Classification: G14, G34, G38, L33, M41 Keywords: Earnings Management,
Privatisations, SOEs, Pakistan, Accrual
Educational Inequality in Rural and Urban Sindh
Get PDFThe key development objective of Pakistan, since its
existence, has been to reduce poverty, inequality and to improve the
condition of its people. While this goal seems very important in itself
yet is also necessary for the eradication of other social, political and
economic problems. The objective to eradicate poverty has remained same
but methodology to analysing this has changed. It can be said that
failure of most of the poverty strategies is due to lack of clear choice
of poverty definition. A sound development policy including poverty
alleviation hinges upon accurate and well-defined measurements of
multidimensional socio-economic characteristics which reflect the ground
realities confronting the poor and down trodden rather than using some
abstract/income based criteria for poverty measurement. Conventionally
welfare has generally been measured using income or expenditures
criteria. Similarly, in Pakistan poverty has been measured mostly in
uni-dimension, income or expenditures variables. However, recent
literature on poverty has pointed out some drawbacks in measuring
uni-dimensional poverty in terms of money. It is argued that
uni-dimensional poverty measures are insufficient to understand the
wellbeing of individuals. Poverty is a multidimensional concept rather
than a unidimensional. Uni-dimensional poverty is unable to capture a
true picture of poverty because poverty is more than income
deprivatio
Micro Hydro Power: A Source of Sustainable Energy in Rural Communities: Economic and Environmental Perspectives
Get PDFEnergy is an important need of human life. It is the life
blood of all economic activities. Due to increase in population and
economic activities, the need for energy is increasing at a faster rate.
Without having sufficient energy, the goal of economic and social
development and the Millennium Development Goals in particular cannot be
achieved. Most of the rural areas in different parts of the world are
without electricity. About 1.6 billion people in the world who are
living in rural areas are without electricity [Greenstone (2014)]. The
reason is that it is too costly to provide electricity services to rural
communities through conventional means due to remote location and low
density of population. Moreover, due to poverty and low income the rural
inhabitants are not in a position to afford the main grid electricity.
The use of diesel and gasoline has been used for decades for provision
of electricity to rural areas. But it was not so successful due to
economic, technical and environmental problems [Woodruff
(2007a)]
Spatial Distribution of Socio-economic Inequality: Evidence from Inequality Maps of a Village in Tribal Region of Pakistan
Get PDFEconomic and social inequality is consistently persisting in
tribal region of Pakistan. People in the tribal region of Pakistan are
living in deprived state whereby they lack even basic necessities in
their lives. As described by Gul, the tribal areas are different than
the rural areas because tribal areas are located in far flung
mountainous terrain where accessibility to basic amenities is much lower
than the rural areas [Gul (2013)]. In recent times, the Government of
Pakistan initiated many efforts for provision of basic amenities in
tribal areas as an essential component of development in the context of
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, according to John the
desired state is yet to be achieved in tribal areas [John (2009)].
Tribal life is characterised by hardship and great insecurity especially
for poor labour. Given the income vulnerabilities, the long run welfare
is forgone for short run securities. Interruption, reduction or loss of
earnings from the contingencies such as unemployment, underemployment,
low wages, low prices and failure to find the market for the produce,
old age, ill-health, sickness, disability etc. are the situations which
call for social security and protection. As concluded by Talbot, this
constant state of deprivation has generated deep rooted inequalities in
the tribal society [Talbot (1998)]. People take rescue measures such as
sending their earners to urban areas and if possible to foreign
countries. Those who have lands and doing agriculture are the blessed
one, although, the earning pattern is distorted due to law and order
situation. To have an assessment of the overall economic inequality in
the tribal region, author conducted a study in a small village Naryab
which is located in the tribal region. Primary data was collected from
the households physically and it was thoroughly analysed to conclude the
pattern of inequality. This inequality was then mapped using latest
mapping software “SURFER”