Journals of Forman Christian College
Not a member yet
217 research outputs found
Sort by
The incidence of government expenditure on health: Muhammad Akrani & Muhammad Tayyab
No full textThis study has analysed the incidence of the government expenditure on health in Pakistan at regional and provincial level, using the latest data of Pakistan Social Standard Living Measures Survey (PSLM) 2004-05 and by employing the Three-step methodology. The inequalities in the benefits of these expenditures exit at regional and provincial level. The rural areas are more disadvantaged groups in the provision of the health facilities. The expenditures in health sectors are overall progressive in Pakistan while it is regressive in some sectors of health at provincial and regional levels. Mother Child subhead is regressive in Punjab and NWFP and General Hospitals Clinics are regressive in rural Punjab and in Balochistan. Public health expenditures are pro-rich at least at provincial level in Pakistan
Output Growth and Employment Generation in Pakistan
Full text linkHuman resources have emerged as one of the most important sources of economic growth and development. However, Pakistan has ignored human development and the result is that it is facing high unemployment. Present study aims at exploring the employment generation capacity of the economy of Pakistan. The economy is divided into six distinct sectors and the contribution of each sector towards creation of employment opportunities is analyzed; both in short run and long run. Labor force imbalances and the resulting unemployment are pointed out by utilizing ARIMA methodology. The sectoral employment elasticities are low and decreasing over time. It may be so due to increasing trend of using capital intensive technology. The empirical projections indicated that Pakistan is suffering from high unemployment and it is expected to rise over 14 percent by the year 2020. Therefore, appropriate policies are needed not only to combat this issue but also for optimal utilization of human capital. Overall growth as well as employment generating sectors need to pay appropriate attention to tackle the issue
Private Return on Higher Education in Pakistan: Malik Fahim Bashir andMuhammad Mazhar Iqbal
Full text linkSince the development of human capital theory, education hasbeen established, by various empirical researches, a keyelement in raising the economic well-being of an individualand a nation alike. However, demand for education in generaland demand for higher education in particular has not pickedup, so far, in many developing countries including Pakistan. Aprobable reason for this paradox could be the discrepancy insocial and private rates of return on higher education.Therefore, this research estimates private rate of return forfour successive degrees of higher education. This studyconsiders education by degree and estimates private rate ofreturn for each degree rather than social one. Private returnon higher education has been estimated by two criteria; NPVand IRR, considering explicit as well as implicit costs and lifelong earnings. Results show that private rate of return is lowestfor PhD degree by IRR criterion and for professional bachelordegree by NPV criterion, so, to boost demand for the highestdegree of education, private rate of return must increase thatcan be achieved effectively either by raising pay scale or byincreasing retirement age for PhD degree holders or by givinginterest-free scholarships to PhD scholars
Determinants of Residential Electricity Expenditure in Pakistan: Urban-Rural Comparison: Ijaz Hussain and Muhammad Asad
Full text linkIn this study the authors attempted to find out the determinants of the consumption expenditure on electricity by households. Explanatory variables are income of household, family size, number of rooms in the house, region, province and electricity consuming appliances like AC, fridge, freezer, computer, washing machine and air cooler. The authors found out that expenditure on electricity is income inelastic, increase in family size and number of rooms increases the expenditure on electricity. Households living in urban areas have more expenditure on electricity as compared to the rural households. Households in urban and rural areas of Punjab have more electricity expenditure as compared to the rest of the provinces. The acquisition of electric appliances contributed positively towards the electricity expenditure. A.C. and Freezer are the two most powerful contributors
Sociopolitical Institutions and Corruption: Ghulam Shabbir, Abdul Farooq and Tanvir Ahmed
No full textThis study estimated the impact of social and political institutions on corruption, and also explored whether conditional cooperation matters or not. The study has used GMM method to estimate the panel data model for Developing Eight countries. The empirical results indicate that education affect corruption negatively, whereas urbanization positively. The interaction term shows that press freedom positively impacts corruption in countries having poor democratic norms, and negatively in case of higher degree of democracy such as Indonesia and Bangladesh. Although, these empirical findings are based on only Muslim countries, but have important implications for policy makers. Economic managers should focus the nation’s educational system, democracy, and liberty of speech and media to restraint the corruption
Total Factor Productivity and Trade: A Panel Data Analysis
No full textThis study tries to explore the impact of trade openness on the total factorproductivity growth in a panel of 94 countries for the period of 1964 to 2003. First, we calculate the total factor productivity growth rates by the growth accounting technique. Second, we estimate the relation between trade openness and the total factor productivity with two different specifications, one without country size and the other with country size. To control for expected heterogeneity in the sample countries, the analysis is carried out separately for the comprehensive sample (all countries) and three subgroups based on the income. Our empirical findings, without country size, suggest that total factor productivity growth is positively affected by trade openness for the comprehensive sample andalso its three sub-groups of countries. Further, we also find that the magnitude of the trade impact on productivity growth is the highest for middle-income group of countries than low- and high-income group of countries. Results with country size suggests that country size itself, is not an important variable in describing the productivity growth, but it helps in capturing the true marginal effect of trade openness of the productivity growth. The impact of openness is stronger with country size for the comprehensive, middle and high group of income
Insight of the Quality of Housing of Pakistani Households: Using New Methodology and the Countrywide Unit Record Data: Jawaria Rashid, Ijaz Hussain, Shabib Haider Syed
Full text linkThis paper explores a new methodology for defining housing quality through constructing the comprehensive index by using the four dimensions. These dimensions include not only the internal as well as external conditions of the houses, but also incorporate the public provisions of the housing facilities available to the community as well as users’ perceptions about these facilities. Thus, the dependent variable of quality of housing index (QHI) comprises of four dimensions. The study uses country-wide unit record data (PSLM-VI: 2010-11) collected at household level. This study concluded that age, income, education of the head as well as family’s education have significant impact on the quality of housing. Specifically, family’s education contributes to the quality of housing at household level. Moreover, the households enjoy higher quality of housing living in pucca houses, in own-houses or in urban areas. Conversely, the poor are badly-stricken for the housing quality
Readdressing Poverty Measurement Practice in Pakistan
Full text linkA clear and systematic methodology for poverty measurement is lacking for Pakistan which results in differing poverty estimates with divergent patterns and trends. This paper measures poverty in Pakistan by establishing a clear and systematic methodology and demonstrates poverty comparisons. Using the data from Household Integrated Economic Survey 2011-12, over 41.18% population in Pakistan is estimated to be below the poverty line. Poverty is found significantly higher in the rural areas as compared with the urban areas at the national level as well as in all the provinces. Though incidence of poverty appears to be highest in Balochistan, majority of poor are found in Punja
Microeconomic Impact of GST on Household Consumption Patterns in Pakistan: Zahid Iqbal, Muhammad Salahuddin Ayyubi, Abdul Farooq and Sumaira Lodhi
Full text linkThis study is aimed at examining the impact of GST (General Sales Tax) insinuation on household consumption and social welfare in Pakistan with a special focus on indirect tax reforms in the country. Deterministic simulation experiments with different rates of GST were carried out for tax policy implication in the country. The results suggested that the government can raise tax revenue by raising price of food as it came out to be a good nominee for taxable commodities. Health related expenditure by households was also inelastic in nature, therefore, the study proposed that taxes must be imposed on goods that have relatively inelastic demand as the marginal cost of tax rate and social welfare loss is minimum in case of inelastic goods. Results from simulation and inequality aversion showed that consumer price of food need to be decoupled which is not possible in case of Pakistan. However, social inequality will upsurge as food is a necessity and when tax is imposed on the necessities, poor sections of the society become more vulnerable. As regard the tax policy implication, GST in VAT (Value Added Tax) mode should be more adopted because of its less distortionary nature as it is imposed on both goods and services and helps in widening the tax base
Fake Beauty Standards: Snapchat Usage Among Pakistani Women: 1.Areeba Naz 2.Nusrat Azeema
Full text linkTechnology has become a very significant part of our lives. This research examines the photo-based activity of Snapchat lenses and its negative impacts on Pakistani women, as its adaptation has been remarkably growing for the past few years. Through the Uses and Gratification theory, which discusses how people use media to satisfy their needs, this study analyzes and pinpoints how people use Snapchat Lenses to satisfy their need for beauty. Using a quantitative online survey, we gathered 435 responses from active Snapchat users through snowball sampling. The majority of Snapchat active users in this study concluded that women use lenses to gratify their needs, Personal identity, Quick Beautification, Instant communication through sharing Snaps, and Effortless instant beauty Lenses. It has also been found that this app also causes a self[1]dissatisfying effect on them. 88.51% of respondents lie between the age of more than 18 years. Still, less than 25 years, 70.57% of respondents were from the undergraduate level, 4.37% of users use Snapchat for video calling purposes specifically, and 41.61% have been using Snapchat for more than three years. Still, in less than four years, 31.49% of Snapchat users seem prettier than other social media platform users, and 87.39% strongly agreed that, yes, these beautification filters are causing such negativity in women towards themselves