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Impact of Global Financial Crisis on IDB Member Countries: The Case of Gulf Cooperation Council and Sub-Saharan Africa
Get PDFThe year 2008 witnessed three major crises (food, energy,
global financial and economic crises) and their impacts were
increasingly felt worldwide. Since the eruption of global financial
crisis from September 2008, international financial markets have become
more turbulent, and the global economic slowdown is expected to deepen
further. Virtually no country, developing or developed, has escaped from
the impact of the global financial turbulence, although countries that
entered the crisis with less integration into the global economy have
generally been less affected. There is an increasing concern that the
ongoing global financial turbulence is likely to transform into human
crisis, particularly in the developing world. Although, it will take
sometime to assess the full impact of the these crises on developed as
well as developing countries, various preliminary estimates have been
reported about the losses due to these crises. For example, Kuwait
Foreign Minister revealed in Arab Economic Summit that Arab investors
lost 50
trillion in 2008, which is equivalent to one year of world GDP.2 Like
other developing countries, the impacts of these crises have also been
increasingly felt in IDB member countries. Firstly, a large number of
member countries were affected due to high food and fuel prices and
since September 2008, they are being affected directly and indirectly by
the global financial crisis although the channels of transmission are
different from those operating in relatively more developed member
countries
Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, Muneer Mahmud, and Mustansar Billah (eds.). Pakistan and Changing Scenario: Regional and Global. Islamabad: Policy Research Institute, 2008. 166 pages. Price not given.
Get PDFThere are major developments taking place around the globe
affecting Pakistan and the region. Pakistan is dealing with various
social, cultural and security issues on its internal side. On the other
hand, the dynamics of globalisation are also having an impact offering
both challenges and opportunities. Taking into consideration the need
for an expert discussion on such issues facing Pakistan, the Islamabad
Policy Research Institute held a seminar on “Pakistan and Changing
Scenario: Regional and Global”. This book contains the research
presented in this seminar and is divided into six chapters. The first
chapter in its first paper on “Education in Pakistan: Historical
Perspective” reviews various education policies starting with
Quaid-i-Azam’s views on education then discusses financing in education
and current data on education. The common factors in all these policies
were Islamic values, universal primary education, technical education,
quality education and national unity. However there was less success in
achieving the goals like the integration of madrassa education with
mainstream education, the removal of the class barrier between English
and Urdu medium students, bridging the rural-urban areas gap and
reaching a hundred percent literacy rate
Regional Trade and Food Price Stabilisation in South Asia: Policy Responses to the 2007-08 World Price Shocks
Get PDFWorld price shocks and disruptions in international cereal
trade in 2007 and 2008 caused considerable anxiety and hardship for food
importing countries throughout the world. In many countries, high
international food prices raised import costs, reduced total supplies
for consumers and ultimately led to lower real incomes and food
consumption for poor households. In South Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Bangladesh and India were all affected by these movements in
international prices, though the effects on domestic prices in each case
was mitigated or exacerbated by each country’s own trade policies, as
well as the trade policies of its neighbours. Prior to 2007, the general
consensus among most economists and food policy analysts was that
openness to international trade, particularly private sector trade, was
the most efficient mechanism for stabilising domestic food prices and
supplies. In light of the 2007-08 experience, however, many observers
have concluded that international markets cannot be trusted and that
countries should rely on their own domestic production to ensure
national and household food security. This paper argues that liberalised
international trade still provides the best mechanism for stabilising
prices and food supplies in most years, but that appropriate contingency
policies are needed for years in which international prices are
extraordinarily high.1 More explicit commitments to cereal trade
liberalisation within South Asia would also promote region-wide food
security and help avoid a repetition of supply disruptions that raised
food prices sharply in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Section II of this
paper briefl
Agricultural Development in European Union: Drivers, Challenges and Perspectives
Get PDFGlobalisation of world trade, consumer-led quality
requirements and EU enlargement are the new realities and challenges
facing European agriculture today. The changes will affect not only
agricultural markets, but also local economies in rural areas. The
future of the agricultural sector is closely linked to a balanced
development of rural areas. The Community dimension in this relationship
is therefore clear: agricultural and rural policy have an important role
to play in the cohesion of EU territorial, economic and social policy.
With over 56 percent of the population in the 27 Member States of the
European Union (EU) living in rural areas, which cover 91 percent of the
territory, rural development is a vitally important policy area. Farming
and forestry remain crucial for land use and the management of natural
resources in the EU’s rural areas, and as a platform for economic
diversification in rural communities. The strengthening of EU rural
development policy is, therefore, an overall EU priority. The European
Union has an active rural development policy because this helps to
achieve valuable goals for the country sides and for the people who live
and work there. The policy is funded partly from the central EU budget
and partly from individual Member States' national or regional budgets.
Theoretically, individual EU Member States could decide and operate
completely independent rural development policies. However, this
approach would work poorly in practice. Not all countries in the EU
would be able to afford the policy which they needed and many of the
issues addressed through rural development policy do not divide up
neatly at national or regional boundaries. Also, rural development
policy has links to a number of other policies set at EU level.
Therefore, the EU has a common rural development policy, which
nonetheless places considerable control in the hands of individual
Member States and regions. The EU’s rural development policy is all
about meeting the challenges faced by our rural areas, and unlocking
their potential
Self-reported Symptoms of Reproductive Tract Infections: The Question of Accuracy and Meaning
Get PDFVerbal surveys are the most common way of gauging any
population’s health status, but questions remain regarding the accuracy
of the responses they elicit. The present paper compares women’s
self-reports regarding their experiences with reproductive tract
infections (RTIs) and the medical diagnosis that they went through to
ascertain the presence or otherwise of the infections. Weak concordance
was found between women’s self-reports and the medical diagnosis, with
the former over-representing the presence of infections. Some of the
selfreported symptoms were pathogenic in nature, as represented by the
true positive reports, but the majority of the self-reports were false
positives when compared to medical diagnosis. The conventional health
surveys, relying solely on verbal responses, thus, do not essentially
represent the actual health situation of a population studied, and any
policy intervention formulated exclusively on this information would be
flawed. There is a need to understand the non-medical context of
illnesses to understand the disease fully. JEL classification: I000,
I190 Keywords: Health, Reproductive Health, Health Surveys’
Accurac
Harinder S. Kohli (ed.). Growth and Development in Emerging Market Economies: International Private Capital Flows, Financial Markets and Globalisation. New Delhi: Sage Publication 2008. 369 pages. Hardbound. Indian Rs 695.00.
Get PDFThe book discusses the different experiences in Asia and Latin
America, while covering the closely related areas under the purview of
Emerging Market Economies (EMEs). The first chapter, “Introduction and
Overview” has written by Harinder S. Kohli gives an excellent review of
the existing literature on the subject. The book discusses six related
topics which include nine papers presented at the Emerging Markets Forum
Meeting held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in September 2006. The book
highlights the main factors of growth and development in Emerging Market
Economies (EMEs) now closely related with international capital flows,
development of financial market, the countries’ ability to integrate
successfully with the global economy through trade and investment and
their ability to forge public-private partnerships including
infrastructure development. Chapter 2, of the book is an article titled
“Global Imbalances, Oil Revenues and Capital Flows to Emerging Market
Countries” by Jack Boorman explains the favourable global environment
and its impact on capital flows to Emerging Market Countries (EMCs). The
EMCs got advantage from this benign global economic environment, such as
high economic growth rate, increase in exports, better national balance
sheet and increase in foreign exchange reserves, but due to high oil
prices the situation has been changed
Inaugural Address
Get PDFSardar Aseff Ahmad Ali, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission,
Dr Rashid Amjad, President, Pakistan Society of Development Economists,
Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen! It is indeed a
privilege and honour to address this distinguished gathering of
economists. I am very happy that this meeting is being attended by
internationally acclaimed economists and academics from both within and
outside the country. I am especially heartened to see that students of
economics from all over Pakistan have been especially invited to attend
this meeting. Over the years the Annual Conference of the Pakistan
Society of Development Economists has become one of the leading events
on the calendar of meetings where experts from various disciplines
discuss cutting edge issues that confront developing economies in
general and Pakistan’s economy in particular. The Pakistan Institute of
Development Economics is to be congratulated for holding such
conferences on an annual and regular basis. The President of the Society
has mentioned that I have actively encouraged the participation of
economic experts, academics and researchers in the policy planning
process. I firmly believe that this interaction will lead to framing of
economic policies that respond to our economic needs and lead to more
sustainable and equitable economic growth. I will continue to involve
our body of economists in formulating policies and thank you for your
offer to work closely with our government. The theme of this year’s
Meeting “Economic Sustainability in a Globalised World” is very timely
and touches the very heart of the economic challenge we face at the
global and national level. The world has witnessed a global financial
meltdown which started in the USA but spread to other parts of the
world, both developed and developing. This financial crisis has now hit
the real economy, causing a massive decline in global manufacturing
output and global trade which is the worst since the Great Depression in
1929. World output is projected to shrink in 2009 and world trade
expected to decline markedly this year
Sticky Floors and Occupational Segregation: Evidence from Pakistan
Get PDFEver since the pioneering work on human capital modeling by
Becker (1964) and Mincer (1974), estimation of earning potential and
wage differentials in terms of differences in human capital endowments
has been a favourite topic of research throughout the world. The
empirical evidence has established, may be beyond doubt, that low
returns are usually associated with low-level of human capital possessed
by economic agents. Using appropriate controls for innate abilities,
education, experience and training as primary determinants of human
capital, the residual differential in wages among differentiated groups
(on the basis of gender, race, and region) has often been characterised
as discrimination [Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973)]. The empirical
estimation made further advances when the issue of sample selection bias
was also settled by Heckman (1980). More recently the focus of research
has shifted from differentials measured at the conditional mean
(average) value to measurement at different points of wage distribution
to test the ‘glass ceiling and sticky floor’ hypothesis.1 Some of the
studies where quantile regression approach of Koenker and Bassett (1978)
and Buchinsky (1998) has been adopted include Bjorklund and Vroman
(2001), Dolado and Llorens (2004), and Albrecht, Vuuren, and Vroman
(2004). On the basis of this research, the glass ceiling hypothesis has
received fair amount of empirical support in much of the developed
world. On the other hand, the sticky floor hypothesis has only been
observed in some of the countries located in the southern Europe. The
focus of present study is on Pakistan with three main objectives. First,
to investigate if analysis at the conditional mean is sufficient to
explain wage differential or an extensive work covering different points
of wage distribution is required to have proper insight to the issue.
This would, in turn, enable us to determine which of the two hypotheses,
i.e., the glass ceiling or the sticky floor, is prevalent in the
country? For this purpose, gender wage differentials at different
quantiles, i.e., 10th, 25th, median
Trends and Determinants of Rural Poverty: A Logistic Regression Analysis of Selected Districts of Punjab
Get PDFPoverty has many dimensions, like malnourishment, no shelter,
being ill and not having ability to visit a doctor, no facility to go to
school, unemployment, uncertainty of tomorrow, surviving only one day at
a time. Poverty is losing a kid to illness due to the infected water.
Powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom is another name of
poverty. Poverty is of many types varying from place to place and time
to time, and, has been portrayed in various manners. Poverty is the
“incapability to maintain a minimum living standard anticipated with
respect to basic consumption needs or some amount of income required for
satisfying them [World Bank (2006)]. The bulk of the global poor are
rural and will linger on thus for numerous decades. The major portion of
their expenditure is generally on staple food. They have little assets
such as land and others, lack of schooling and face lots of
interconnecting obstacles to develop. Approximately 1.2 billion people
globally expend less than a standard; “dollara- day”; and are in “dollar
poverty”; 44 percent in South Asia about 24 percent each in Sub-Saharan
Africa and East Asia and 32 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Almost 75 percent of the dollar poor lived and worked in rural areas in
2001. Projection made in 2001 suggested that 60 percent would continue
to be in this state in 2005 [IFAD (2001)]. Pakistan’s population is
estimated at around 155 million, and is growing at 1.9 percent per
annum. Nearly 61 percent of the country’s populations live in rural
areas. While 65 percent of the rural population is directly or
indirectly linked with agriculture sector, it constitutes only 45
percent of their income [Pakistan (2006)]. According to the official
statistics, poverty in the rural areas has gone down form 39 percent in
2001-02 to 28 percent in 2005-06. [Pakistan (2006)]. However, some
studies have contradicted these contentions and argue that in contrast,
the rural poverty has remained unchanged or even been trending higher
over this period or at least not decreased as much as shown in official
statistics. [Kemal (2003); Malik (2005); World Bank (2006); Anwar
(2006)]
Food Security in a Changing Climate
Get PDFAgriculture sector is more vulnerable to climate change than
other sectors of the economy as climate change is expected to cause
higher variability in rainfall pattern, general reduction in
precipitation in the arid and semi-arid regions and increase in the
frequency of extreme events such as drought, floods, heat and frost.
Agriculture production systems, therefore, have to cope with more
variability in river water flows and temperature regimes, making food
security susceptible to these variation. The less privileged
people/farmers who are often located in the marginal production areas
such as rainfed, coastal, and mountenace, are likely to be affected more
by climate variability whether drought or floods, heat or frost. These
changes in climate enhance the risk of crop failures and livestock
morality thereby causing financial and economic losses and the risk of
food insecurity