The Pakistan Development Review
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The State of Food Security in Pakistan: Future Challenges and Coping Strategies
Get PDFPakistan is a low income developing country. Agriculture is
the most important sector of the country meeting food and fibre
requirements of the fast growing population. Although the rate of
population increase has considerably slowed down from over 3 percent in
1980s to 2.09 percent in 2009-10, it is still considered high.1 With the
current rate of population growth, the population is expected to get
doubled by 2050—making Pakistan 4th largest nation by 2050 from current
status of 6th most populous state of the world [Pakistan (2010)]. The
total cultivated area has increased by just 40 percent during past 60
years, while there has been more than 4 times increase in population
with urban expansion of over seven-fold—resulting into mega-cities2 as
well as rising population pressure on cultivated land. Wheat production,
a major food crop, has increased five-fold during the same period—yet
the country is marginal importer of wheat. Tremendous efforts are needed
both advances in technology and population control to narrow the food
supply-demand gap
Urbanisation and Crime: A Case Study of Pakistan
Get PDFCrime is an activity which is against the law and the fact
that the linkage between criminal activities and the socio-economic
development of the society is undeniable. Moreover, the relationship
between crime and evolution of mankind may also be considered a
historical one as Cain (first son of Adam and Eve) committed first crime
when he murdered his brother Able because of jealousy. Due to the
complex nature of the subject of crime, for example, regarding its
causes and consequences, various academic disciplines such as
criminology, sociology, geography, psychology and demography study it
from their own perspective. A relatively new emerging field, however, is
the economics of crime which tries to identify the socio-economic causes
and consequences of criminal activities in a society
Shankar Acharya and Rakesh Mohan (eds.) India’s Economy—Performance and Challenges: Essays in Honour of Montek Singh Ahluwalia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010. xv+465 pages.
Get PDFThis volume comprises a compilation of essays written by
distinguished Indian economists, and international economists and
observers on India, in honour of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, an eminent
economist and currently Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, widely
recognised as one of the main architects and drivers of the economic
reform process. In a very well-written Introduction to this festschrift,
capturing the essence of the contributions to the volume and weaving
them into an excellent overview, Shankar Acharya and Rakesh Mohan state,
“Indeed the story of India’s economic policies over the past three
decades could easily be woven around Montek’s career as the pre-eminent
government economist through most of this time”. This role is earlier
acknowledged in the foreword to the volume by the current Indian Prime
Minister, Manmohan Singh, the initiator of the overall reform process as
Finance Minister from 1991-96, when Montek (as he is popularly known)
worked under him in important positions. This recognition also finds
strong support amongst the authors, who were close associates of Montek
in policy-making, as they recount the role he played in both shaping and
driving the economic policy reform agenda. How a small but well-knit
team of economists, most of whom had earlier worked in the World Bank or
the IMF, could actually achieve this in a country as large and complex
as India would baffle any observer. While the book provides no explicit
answer, the reform process appears to have initially found favour in
response to the economic crisis in 1991. The process then gained
momentum as the reforms showed measurable success, and this helped win
over the trust and confidence of the political ruling élite
Guillermo E. Perry, Luis Servén, and Rodrigo Suescún (eds.). Fiscal Policy, Stabilisation, and Growth: Prudence or Abstinence? Washington, D.C: The World Bank. 2008. Paperback. 329 Pages. Price not Given.
Get PDF‘Fiscal Policy, Stablisation, and Growth’ edited by Guillermo
Perry, is an excellent volume covering the typical but current debate on
“Does Fiscal Policy Matters”. The book highlights the procyclical and
anti-investment biases embedded in fiscal policies, explores their
causes and macroeconomic consequences. The text provides empirical
substance to the theoretical models and offers policy and
recommendations, to help overcome the procyclicality and anti-investment
biases of fiscal policies adopted thereof. With wide range of technical
and empirical discussions, political economy aspects of the budgets have
also been examined. Though the focus of the book is Latin American and
the Caribbean countries, the debate is so holistic that it can be used
for policy recommendations else where as well. The book is organised in
two parts; the first part, spread over four chapters, covers the
procyclicality of Fiscal policy while the Part II, comprised of five
chapters, elucidates the impact of fiscal policy on economic growth. The
discourse takes into account the fiscal policy solvency condition and
its imbedded biases towards certain policy options. Chapter 1 provides
an excellent overview of what is discussed in the volume. The book
argues that excessive focus of fiscal agents on short term indicators of
fiscal health, namely the government debt or cash flows, may detract
attention from tracking the intertemporal solvency. Such detraction will
affect the macroeconomic stability and long-term growth, argues the
book. Perverse incentives, that have political economy context, are at
the root of flawed policies such as procyclical policies, contends the
book
Budgetary Consequences of the 7th NFC Award
Get PDFThe 7th NFC Award of 2009 has generally been recognised as a
historic achievement of the present democratically elected government.
Not only was consensus achieved after a gap of 12 years among the
Federal and Provincial Governments but major strides have also been made
in furthering the process of fiscal decentralisation in the country. The
Federal Government will be transferring substantially more resources to
the provinces by a major enhancement in the collective share of the
latter from the divisible pool taxes. In addition, the provinces have
agreed to a horizontal sharing formula that includes multiple criteria
and promises greater fiscal equalisation in favour of the more backward
provinces. Straight transfers have also been rationalised and the
Federal Government has agreed to pay in instalments the substantial
arrears that had accumulated under different heads
Fiscal Policy and Current Account Dynamics in the Case of Pakistan
Get PDFThe relationship between fiscal policy and the current account
has long attracted interest among academic economists and policymakers
after introduction of the standard intertemporal model of the current
account by Sachs (1981) and its extension by Obstfeld and Rogoff, (1995)
in open economy macroeconomics. There are two major strands of the
current account literature Mundell-Fleming [Mundell (1968) and Fleming
(1967)] and Ricardian equivalence [Barro (1974, 1989)] to explain such
variations in the deficits. According to Mundell-Fleming model budget
deficits cause current account deficits through stimulating income
growth or exchange rate appreciation [Darrat (1988); Abell (1990);
Bachman (1992) and Bahmani-Oskooee (1992)]. On the other hand, there is
Ricardian view that the financing of budget deficits, either through
reduced taxes or by issuing bond does not alter present value wealth of
private households since both temporarily reduced taxes and issuance of
bonds represent future tax liabilities [Kaufmann, et al. (2002); Evans
(1989); Miller and Russek (1989); Enders and Lee (1990) and Kim (1995)].
The underlying reason is that the effects of fiscal deficits on the
current account depend on the nature of the fiscal imbalance. For
example, in a simple theoretical model in which Ricardian equivalence
holds, a cut in lump sum taxes and the ensuing fiscal deficit would not
affect the current account as the private savings increase will offset
the fiscal deficit but investment will be unchanged. Conversely, a
transitory increase in government spending will increase both the fiscal
deficit and the current account deficit, a case of twin deficits. And a
permanent increase in government spending will have no effects on the
current account while its effects on the fiscal balance will depend on
whether the extra spending is financed right away with taxes (in which
case the fiscal balance is unchanged) or whether it is financed with
debt (future taxes) in which case the fiscal balance worsens. Thus,
fiscal deficit may or may not lead to current account deficits depending
on the nature and persistence of the fiscal shock. There is also a third
scenario relate to Recardian view that portrays the possibility of
negative relationship between the deficits where, for example, output
shock give rise to endogenous movements and two deficits are
divergent
The Value of Reduced Risk of Injury and Deaths in Pakistan—Using Actual and Perceived Risk Estimates
Get PDFDifferent safety measures adopted by governments across the
globe require the estimates of willingness to pay of the people to swap
wealth for a reduction in the probability of death and injury. The
approximation of these trade-offs are employed in assessing the
cost-benefit analysis of environmental issues, public safety measures on
highways and roads, medical treatments, and many other areas. Economists
term a trade-off between money and fatality risks as the Value of a
Statistical Life (VSL). The Value of Statistical Life and Limb is
generally predicted using one of the three main approaches. The first is
by the compensating wage differentials that workers must be paid to take
riskier jobs [Viscusi and Aldy (2003)]. The second approach examines
other behaviours where people weigh costs against risks [Blomquist
(2004)] and the third is through contingent valuation surveys where
respondents report their willingness to pay (WTP) to obtain a specified
reduction in mortality risks. The VSL is then obtained by dividing the
WTP by the risk reduction being valued [Alberini (2005)]
Devolution, Accountability, and Service Delivery in Pakistan
Get PDFThis paper examines into the relationship between devolution,
accountability, and service delivery in Pakistan by examining the degree
of accessibility of local policymakers and the level of competition in
local elections, the expenditure patterns of local governments to gauge
their sectoral priorities, and the extent to which local governments are
focused on patronage, or providing targeted benefits to a few as opposed
to providing public goods. The main findings of the paper are threefold.
First, the accessibility of policy-makers to citizens in Pakistan is
unequivocally greater after devolution, and local government elections
are, with some notable exceptions, as competitive as national and
provincial elections. Second, local government sectoral priorities are
heavily tilted towards the provision of physical
infrastructure—specifically, roads, water and sanitation, and rural
electrification—at the expense of education and health. Third, this
sectoral prioritisation is in part a dutiful response to the relatively
greater citizen demands for physical infrastructure; in part a
reflection of the local government electoral structure that gives
primacy to village and neighbourhood-specific issues; and in part a
reaction to provincial initiatives in education and health that have
taken the political space away from local governments in the social
sectors, thereby encouraging them to focus more towards physical
infrastructure. JEL classification: H7, D72, H4 Keywords: State and
Local Government, Inter-government Relations, Political Processes,
Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behaviour,
Publically Provided Good
Naomi Klein. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Henry Holt and Metropolitan Books. 2007. 500 pages. Hardcover. US$18.11.
Get PDFNaomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, and his book The
Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a bestseller. Klein
argues that free market philosophy professed by the Nobel laureate
Milton Friedman and may others and adopted by the international
financial institutions faced a hard time while being put to practice.
Accordingly, crises were engineered in some countries to provide an
environment in which unpopular reforms could be carried through. In some
countries natural disasters were used as an occasion to push through the
free market reform agenda. Klein’s basic thesis is that unpopular market
reforms have typically been carried out at a time when the
shock-stricken people were too disoriented to take even a clear stand on
the reforms, much less to put up a stiff resistance to these. Policy
changes that followed the Falklands war of 1982, the Tiananmen square
event of 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian
Financial Crisis of 1997, and of course the more recent Global Financial
Crisis are all examples of pushing through the liberal reform agenda
after the man-made crises had disoriented the public at large or had
softened their stand on the free market