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Determinants of Exports of Pakistan: A Country-wise Disaggregated Analysis.
Get PDFGiven the importance of international trade and export
performance in economic growth, this study attempts to examine the
determinants of exports of Pakistan, using a time series data over the
period 1975-2008. A simultaneous equation approach is followed and the
demand and supply side equations are specified with appropriate
variables. This is a country-wise disaggregated analysis of Pakistan
versus its trade partners and the estimation strategy is based on two
approaches. First we employ the Generalised Methods of Moments (GMM),
which is followed by the Empirical Bayesian technique to get consistent
estimates. The GMM technique is believed to be efficient for time series
data provided the sample size is sufficiently large. In case of small
samples, the estimates might not be precise and might appear with
unbelievable sign and insignificant magnitudes. To avoid the sample bias
and other problems, we employ the Empirical Bayesian technique which
provides much precise estimates. The factual results obtained via the
GMM technique are a little bit mixed, although most of the coefficients
are found to be statistically significant and carry their expected
signs. In order to compare and validate these results, the Empirical
Bayesian technique is employed. This offers considerable improvement
over the previous results and all the variables are found to be highly
significant with correct sign across the countries concerned with the
exception of a few cases. The price and income elasticities in both the
demand and supply side equations carry their expected signs and
significant magnitudes for the trading partners. The findings suggest
that exports of Pakistan are much sensitive to changes in the world
demand and world prices. This establishes the importance of demand side
factors like world GDP, Real exchange rate, and world prices to
determine the exports of Pakistan. On the supply side, we find
relatively small price and income elasiticities. The results reveal that
demand for exports is relatively higher for countries in NAFTA, European
Union and Middle East regions. The study recommends particular
concentration on the trade partners in these regions to improve the
export performance of Pakistan. Keywords: Exports, GMM, Empirical
Bayesian Method, Pakista
Lopamudra Banerjee, Anirban Dasgupta, and Rizwanul Islam (eds.). Development, Equity and Poverty: Essays in Honour of Azizur Rehman Khan. India: Macmillan Publishers India Ltd. 2010. Hardback, 542 pages, Indian Rs 2100.00.
Get PDFThe book, as the title indicates, is collection of articles by
the experts in the field of development economics. It is compiled in
honour of Professor Azizur Rehman Khan, guru in the field of development
economics. Unfortunately, I have not met Professor Khan but his writings
were always a source of inspiration. This book is the best present to
Professor Khan on his seventieth birthday. Acknowledging the fact that
development challenges are becoming more complex and multidimensional,
the collection of articles is based on following six themes: First theme
focuses on Macroeconomics of Development. Second theme is Growth,
Poverty and Inequality Linkages and third is Analysis of Poverty. The
forth theme relates to issues of Employment-Intensive Growth. Fifth
theme reviews the Labour Markets, Wages and Productivity and the final
focus is on Rural Development. Three articles on Macroeconomics of
Development focus on role of pricing structure, investment, sources and
structure of growth in China and the macroeconomic policy framework to
ensure stability, growth and employment. Keith Griffin critically
evaluates the existing development theories. In the first instance, he
questions the role of relative prices in resource reallocation resulting
in change in economic structure. Griffin evaluates different dimensions
of the argument. For example the degree of mobility of factors of
production across sectors which can impose additional costs.
Furthermore, he argues, it may not be the price signal that affects the
resource allocation. It is the investment decision that, " ...
determines how resources in fact are allocated"
Consequences of Political Instability, Governance and Bureaucratic Corruption on Inflation and Growth: The Case of Pakistan.
Get PDFThis paper presents a theoretical model with micro-foundations
that captures some important features of Pakistan‘s economy which have
emerged in sixty-four years of its history. A comparison of Pakistan‘s
economic performance during different regimes shows that macroeconomic
fundamentals tend to show an improvement during the autocratic regimes
as compared with those prevailing during democratic regimes. In
particular, periods of autocratic regimes are typically characterised by
low inflation, robust growth and low level of bureaucratic corruption
due to better governance. In contrast, the economic performance during
the democratic regimes has been observed to worsen with weak governance
and high levels of corruption, high inflation due partly to reliance on
seigniorage to finance public spending, and lacklustre growth. Using
annual data from 1950 to 2011, computational modelling is carried out by
applying Markov-Regime switching technique with maximum-likelihood
procedures. The estimation results based on empirical modelling setup
are supportive of the above stylised-facts and also confirm the
implications of the theoretical model. JEL classifications: D73, E31,
H60, O42 Keywords: Political Instability, Governance, Corruption,
Inflation, Growt
Kemal Dervis, Masahiro Kawai, and Domenico Lombardi (eds.). Asia and Policymaking for the Global Economy. Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011. 200 pages, USD 19.95.
Get PDFAsia and Policymaking for the Global Economy is a collection
of analysis on global economic cooperation. In particular it highlights
Asia’s accomplishments, opportunities, its potential, and the role it
can play in the global economy. It is divided into five chapters each
constituting a different insightful article. The first chapter gives an
introduction and an over view of the topics analysed in this book. It
focuses on the structural transformation in Asia and the world economy,
and discusses the rise of Asia and implications for economic
coordination at international level. The second chapter focuses on
growth dynamics in Asia in a global context. It provides an important
contribution to the subject issue as it analyses the sources of
structural transformation experienced by world economy. It suggests that
policy-makers should focus on global savings and investment structures
to rebalance world economy. The rebalancing debate is then connected to
the debate on the international monetary system and role of reserve
currencies in this chapter
Inaugural Address
Get PDFDr Rashid Amjad, President Pakistan Society of Development
Economists and Vice-Chancellor PIDE, distinguished guests, ladies and
gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to address the 27th Annual General
Meeting and Conference of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists
(PSDE). I am pleased to note that the Society has been instrumental in
promoting scholarly research and debate on critical socio-economic
issues facing Pakistan, and that the Pakistan Institute of Development
Economics (PIDE) has played a vital role in promoting and nurturing the
Society since its inception in 1982. The Society has not only upheld and
galvanized the profession of development economics in Pakistan but has
also helped inspire new ideas for the greater development and prosperity
of Pakistan. Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to see that when I address
you today Pakistan's economy is again showing distinct signs of recovery
and we hope to achieve a growth rate of 4 to 5 percent this year which
should help lift us to a much higher growth trajectory in the future.
Despite the heavy headwinds that we have had to face, our government
took important fundamental economic decisions of which we can be justly
proud
Keri Facer. Learning Future, Education, Technology and Social Change. Routledge Publications, 2011. 192 pages. US$ 44.95.
Get PDFLearning Future, Education, Technology and Social Change by
Keri Facer is an informative book drawing on over 10 years of research
on digital technologies, social change and education. The writer makes a
compelling argument for thinking differently about the future for which
education might need to prepare. Packed with case studies from around
the world, the book helps to bring into focus the risks and
opportunities for societies and for schooling over the coming two
decades. Most people recognise that current education systems are not
meeting the needs of individuals and ‘society’ and several books have
been written on the future of education. In this context, Keri Facer
investigates the scenario of education, technology and social change
over the coming two decades by considering nine assumptions about
socio-technological change. These include that in next 20 years there
would be significantly increased computing and communication at a
distance will be taken for granted by the large majority of people.
Moreover, working and living alongside sophisticated machines and
networks will increasingly be taken for granted and biosciences will
produce unpredictable breakthroughs and important new stories about us.
Population is ageing globally and energy, mineral resources and climate
warming will remain significant issues. And finally we will be facing
radical national and global inequalities
The Utilisation of Education and Skills: Incidence and Determinants among Pakistani Graduates
Get PDFThis study estimates the incidence of job mismatch and its
determinants in Pakistan, based on three categories: (i) qualification
mismatch, (i) skill mismatch, and (iii) field-of-study mismatch. It uses
both primary and secondary datasets that target graduates employed by
the formal sector. The study measures the qualification mismatch using
three approaches and finds that about one third of the graduates sampled
face a qualification mismatch. Similarly, more than one fourth are
mismatched in terms of skill, about half are over-skilled, and half are
under-skilled. The analysis also shows that 11.3 percent hold jobs that
are irrelevant to their discipline and 13.8 percent have jobs that are
slightly relevant to their discipline. Women are more likely than men to
be over-qualified, and age has a negative association with
over-qualification. Graduates who belong to political families have a
better qualification match but a lower field-of-study match. While a
higher level of schooling prevents graduates from being under-qualified,
it also raises the likelihood of being over-qualified and over-skilled.
Occupation-specific disciplines offer more protection against the
possibility of job mismatch. Both full-time education and
semester-system education reduce job mismatch, while distance learning
raises job mismatch. The phenomena of being over-qualified and
over-skilled is more prevalent in lower occupations, as is
field-of-study mismatch. JEL classification: I23, I24, J21, J24
Keywords: Education and Inequality, Higher Education, Human Capital,
Labour Marke
Predation, Institutional Quality and Economic Growth.
Get PDFThis study develops a theoretical a model to examine the
impact of predation on aggregate output and aggregate consumption. Using
game theoretic framework we show that predation, reduces aggregate
output and per capita consumption. Predation occurs when some agents
enjoy comparative advantage in predation. Given predation under
comparative advantage of some agents, a larger part of the aggregate
output accrues to the predators. We also demonstrate that given
inequality of endowments, the poorly endowed enjoys an incentive to
predate. The payoff of the well endowed from production and predation is
the same. Therefore the well endowed has no incentive to predate. If the
well endowed still predates this would be owed to his comparative
advantage in predation rather than the inequality per se. Large
endowments are only one of the numerous sources that afford such
comparative advantage. Good institutions like rule of law and effective
government tame this comparative advantage. It is due to this kind of
taming, that despite significant inequality in some economies, the level
of predation observed is relatively low. Institutional quality thus
determines the level of predation. We also show that redistribution from
well endowed to poorly endowed will not only increase per capita
consumption but will also be a ‗Pareto improvement‘. JEL classification:
D03, O43, P14 Keywords: Predation, Institutions, Growt
A Strategic Framework of Liberalising Trade in Services for Pakistan.
No full textFor a long time, services were considered non-tradable in the
literature of international economics. However, the sector has emerged
with profound importance on the basis of strong underpinnings.
Technological advancement, financial constraints and limited options,
and regulatory changes have greatly expanded the range and scope of
trade in services especially in the context of increasing share of
knowledge intensive products at the world market. Services now account
for a substantial and rising share of output and employment in the
economy of Pakistan and its trading partners. However, it is argued that
the growing share of services in the economy of Pakistan and its trading
partners has not translated into a significant increased share in their
over-all trade. Pakistan is heading towards liberalisation of trade in
services through unilateral, bilateral, multi-lateral agreements under
the broad framework of WTO. Recently, in the wake of trade
liberalisation in EBOPS services among Pakistan‘s trading partners;
Pakistan has received request lists from its trading partners in the
context of national treatment and market access under four modes of
cross-border supply of WTO framework. In this regard, the opportunities
as well as risks associated with trade liberalisation depend primarily
on the relative competitiveness among the trading partners. It is,
therefore, essential for the policy makers to design such a trade policy
which not only helps in promoting domestic services industries but also
open up new opportunities of employment generation and economic growth
and development with a guarantee of peace and stability within and
across its neighbouring countries. In this connection, this research
paper develops a strategic framework of liberalising trade in services
in 12 categories of services with 26 partner countries of Pakistan using
various economics tools (RCAI, TII, TCI, TBI) and econometric models and
techniques (OLS, PLS, 2SLS) by using panel data on annual and quarterly
frequencies. JEL classifications: C52, C63, C87, F1, F13, F14, L8, F15,
O24 Keywords: Trade in Services, Growth and Development, Trade Potential
through Two Stage Least Square with Cross-section Fixed Effect Model by
Using Panel Data, Trade Intensity Indices (TII), Trade Complementarity
Indices (TCI), Trade Biased Indices (TBI), Revealed Comparative
Advantage Indices (RCAI), Determinants of RCAI Using Pooled Least Square
Method (PLS), Price and Income Elasticities Using Ordinary Least Square
Method (OLS)
A Strategic Tool for Managing Intellectual Capital of Pakistan
Get PDFIn the post-industrial world, the Intellectual Capital (IC) of
nations has become critical for wealth and value creation. In this era
of knowledge-based economy, one real challenge that a nation faces is
maintenance of its economic growth and its competitiveness in the
international market. Policy-makers presently need to have a strategic
management tool to measure and develop IC assets of a country. The paper
extends the framework of Skandia Navigator [Edvinsson and Malone (1997)]
from the corporate to the national level and develops a tool on the
extended framework to visualise the intellectual capital of Pakistan.
The Intellectual Capital of a country is indirectly visualised through
various indices. These indices change from year to year, not necessarily
in a consistent manner, so that having a general view would be baffling.
To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes three methods of
measuring the change in IC based on Financial Index (FI), Human Index
(HI), Process Index (PI), Market Index (MI) and Research Index (RI).
These tools produce composite IC indices for Pakistan (2005-2010) that
can be useful for the development of national policies. Keywords:
Intellectual Capital Measurement, Knowledge Management, Strategic
Management, Pakistan Econom