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The Impact of Trade Liberalisation on Wage Inequality: Case of Pakistan.
Get PDFThis paper examines whether trade liberalisation played a role
in shaping the wage structure of Pakistan in the late 1990s and early
2000. It uses manufacturing workers data from LFS supplemented by
external information to analyse the impact of trade liberalisation. In
general, the results show that trade liberalisation, measured through
import penetration ratio, export penetration ratio and relative prices
of each industry, not only impacted wages but also increased wage
inequality across skill levels from 1996-97 to 2005-06. The econometrics
analysis confirms that increase in import penetration raises skilled
premium while simultaneously reducing unskilled premium; a result in
contention with the findings of the Stolper-Sameulson
Theorem
Michael K. Connors, Rémy Davison, and Jörn Dosch. The New Global Politics of the Asia Pacific. (Second edition). London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 2012. 274 pages. Price not given.
Get PDFThe updated edition of The New Global Politics of the Asia
Pacific provides a framework for understanding the complexities of
global politics in this region. The book focuses on crucial aspects such
as realism, liberalism, and critical theoretical views. It sheds light
on refined interpretations and covers current important issues,
including security, terrorism, and the role of transnational actors. The
edition is a good collection of constructive and thought-provoking
papers by three authors, and serves as a useful tool for graduate
students, researchers, and policymakers with which to understand
political policy debates
Paul Roberts (ed). The End of Food. New York: Mariner Books Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Bosten. 2009. xv+330 pages. (Price not given).
Get PDFThe modern food economy has evolved over time. The calorie
dense food (meat) has taken the place of plants and a technologically
driven agriculture system has replaced the traditional food system.
Several factors such as industrial revolution, opening of trade, end of
communism, female market participation and technological change have
contributed in shaping the rules of modern food production system. The
endless efforts of the scientists geared towards discoveries has led to
a green revolution in the field of agriculture and have done enough to
untrue the earlier predictions of mass famine by Thomas Malthus.
However, all such man made progress has not done much to resolve
challenges of food security, food economy liberalisation and food safety
being faced by every country today. This book presents well researched
answers to questions raised at every forum on global food security such
as; how did the primitive food system evolve into its present shape,
what has motivated less spending on food, what has promoted the idea of
convenience food in retail business, what has led to technology driven
revolution in agriculture output, what radical steps are needed to
escape from evils of hunger and malnutrition in the present world, what
provokes food producers in developed countries to rule out unfettered
functioning of food trade, and finally what turns around the progress
that has ever been made in agriculture
Monetary Policy Announcements and Market Interest Rates in Pakistan: An Event Study Approach.
Get PDFThe objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of
monetary policy (MP) announcements on market interest rates at different
nine maturities (1/Week, 2/Week, 1/Month, 3/Months, 6/Months, 9/Months,
1/Year, 2/Years and 3/Years) in Pakistan. The Event window of 11 days
and an estimation window of 250 days have been used for analysis. The
study did not find significant evidence of ARCH effect in market
interest rates at (1/Year, 2/Years and 3/Years) maturities. However,
there is evidence of significant abnormal returns which shows a positive
impact of monetary policy announcements on market interest rates at
different nine maturities. Keywords: Monetary Policy, Market Interest
Rates, Normal Rates, Abnormal Rates, GARCH, ARIM
Testing the Harrod Balassa Sameulson Hypothesis: The Case of Pakistan.
Get PDFFor a small open economy of Pakistan, exchange rate is
determined through the two alternative theories; the nominal theory of
exchange rate named by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and the real theory
known as Harrod Balassa Sameulson (HBS). According to the requirements
of theories, two kinds of real exchange rate have been employed for the
yearly data of 1972-2008. As, both of the theories are disputed at the
ground of their long run relationship with real exchange rate,
therefore, the VAR based Johenson Co-integration approach has been
utilised to see the long run relationships. PPP has shown less
satisfactory results either in its form of absolute version or relative
version. Because, real exchange rate in Pakistan is a non-stationary
process by Augmented Dickey Fuller unit-root test, predicting some
pushing force behind the non-tradable sector. While favouring the PPP in
tradable sector, the ADF and KPSS are indicating the presence of the HBS
in Pakistan. On the other hand, the analysis of the HBS through
co-integration is showing that relative productivity difference has an
opposite relationship with relative non-tradable sector prices and with
RER. However, the relationship between relative non-tradable sector
prices and RER is much stronger and according to the theory. So, there
have been incorporated some demand side and external factors to reduce
the mis-specification of the simple HBS model. Therefore, in the
extended HBS model, productivity difference, government consumption
expenditure, terms of trade and world oil prices are appreciating the
RER and money supply (a control variable) is pursuing depreciation in
RER. So, these results yield some policy implications for Pakistan which
can be useful for developing countries as well. JEL classification: E0,
E31, E44 Keywords: Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson, Exchange Rate, Purchasing
Power Parity, Pakista
David J. Grimshaw and Shalini Kala (eds.). Strengthening Rural LivelihoodsThe Impect of Information and Communication Technologies in Asia. International Development and Research Centre (IDRC). Canada: Replika Press Pvt. Ltd. 201 L 152 pages. Paperback.
No full textWe live in the age of information in which Information and
Communication Technonoly usage has diffused throughout the world. In
many developing countries
The Foreign-Income and Real-Exchange-Rate Elasticities of Bangladesh Exports
Get PDFBangladesh began implementing trade-reform policies in the mid
1980s, leading to a gradual change in its anti-export-policy. Since then
the share of exports in her GDP has been rising steadily with the
economy growing at about 5 percent per annum. This growth is associated
with structural change in the country’s export composition favouring
non-traditional exports, namely garments and frozen foods. This paper
specifies and estimates an aggregate export-demand function; deploys
Pesaran’s bounds-testing approach to estimate export-elasticities of
foreign income and the exchange rate; and tests for the stability of the
estimated function. The empirical results, based on annual data for the
period 1973-2010, suggest a long-run relationship between real exports
and export-weighted foreign real income. Similarly, real exports and the
real effective exchange rate of the taka are found to be related.
Finally, the results suggest that the dynamic behaviour of exports
possesses an error-correction representation. The CUSUM and CUSUMSQ
tests suggest no significant instability in the export-demand function.
However, the recursive and rolling-regression coefficients indicate that
the export-demand function has undergone some structural change since
the early 1990s. This is reflected in the decreasing sensitivity of real
exports vis á vis the exchange rate. JEL classification: C32, F11
Keywords: Exports’ Elasticities, Pesaran’s Bounds Test, Export-demand
Stability, Banglades
Monetary and Non-monetary Gift Exchange
Get PDFA standard labour contract has two important components,
agreed upon wage from principal and efforts that in return is provided
by agent. On one hand both principal and agent have full knowledge of
wage, while information on provided effort level is always incomplete
due to its abstract nature. Principal can only observe output of agent,
which is joint function of effort, skill level and work environment
[Green (1992)]. Assuming economic agents strictly follow their material
gain, the game theoretic model predicts that agent will utilise minimum
possible effort level. Similarly, the principal will pay minimum wages,
since additional wages cannot extract additional effort. In contrast,
the gift exchange model (GEM) is based on the critical assumption that
reciprocal behaviour creates a positive relationship between wages and
workers‘ effort levels [Akerlof (1982, 1984)]. Workers are assumed to
reciprocate higher wage levels from firms by increasing their effort
(positive reciprocity) and /or by decreasing their effort in retaliation
for low wage (negative reciprocity). In labour market as partial gift
exchange, the loyalty of workers is exchanged for higher wage, and this
loyalty then can be translated to higher productivity through effective
management. Experimental evidence has supported the reciprocity
hypothesis both in laboratory [Fehr and Falk (2008); Fehr, et al.
(1993); Fehr and Tougareva (1995); Fehr and Falk (1999); Fehr, et al.
(1998); Fehr, Gächter, and Kirchsteiger (1997)] and in the field [Falk
(2007); Henning- Schmidt, et al. (2005); Bellemare and Shearer
(2007)]
Economic Impact of Climate Change on the Agricultural Sector of Punjab
Get PDFAs back as the Industrial Revolution, anthropogenic activities
namely, power generation from fossil fuels and deforestation activities
have been continuously increasing the atmospheric concentration of GHGs
beyond their natural limits resulting in an enhanced greenhouse effect,
vis-à-vis, an increase in global temperature. The rise in temperature
could be coupled with changes in rainfall pattern, rise in sea level,
and frequency and severity of extreme events namely, cyclones and
droughts etc. The sum of all these changes is referred to as climate
change. Climate change affects economic development in many ways,
especially the agrarian economies have always depended on vagaries of
nature and climate. Change in temperature, precipitation averages and
extreme climate events can alter yield, income, health, sociology and
physical safety. Climate change is a global phenomenon and no country is
immune to it. The disappearing of the Himalayan glaciers at a fast pace
would increase the probability of extreme water flows, rendering it
uncontrolled will bring heavy floods, loss of life, livestock, crops and
infrastructural facilities in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Climate change will affect all sectors of the economy not alone
agricultural sector the most as well as health, forests, energy, coastal
area, biodiversity and ecology all over the globe. In this connection,
it will be pertinent to give the most recent events which have taken
place across Asia
Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi. The Evolution of Development Policy: A Reinterpretation. Oxford University Press, 2010. 442 pages. Hardbound. Pak. Rs 995.00.
Get PDF‘The Evolution of Development Policy: A Reinterpretation’ by
S. N. Haider Naqvi is an excellent and timely discourse on development
paradigms. The author lucidly traces evolution of different development
paradigms and in the process not only thoroughly explains, what each
paradigm stands but also critically evaluates each paradigm. The book is
organised into seven parts. Part I, comprising ‘preliminaries’ gives an
overview of the evolution of thinking on development policy. The
analytical framework highlights the faults in the structure of
development policy. To set the framework for analysing development
policy, the book argues that an evolutionary perspective on development
policy should be examined under three paradigms: traditional development
paradigm; the liberalist paradigm and the human development paradigm.
The author takes pains to describe various important aspects of this
framework. The author also argues that some aspects of the traditional
development paradigm have been misunderstood and in the process
elucidate the subject