Modify your search
Book Reviews: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores theHidden Side of Everything
Sohaib Shahid
Published:July - Dec 2006
Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY, 2005, pp 356, Price: Hardback $ 27.95.
Ever wondered why drug dealers still live with their mothers? Why the United States’ crime rate plummeted to new lows in the 90s? Why did the racist hate group the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) falter as an organized unit in America? What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? “Why” is something Steven D. Levitt does not cease to question. Levitt along with his amanuensis, Stephen Dubner has written a classic titled, Freakonomics.
KEYWORDS:
Book review, freakonomics.
JEL:
N/A.
Published:Sept 2006
The Second Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan
Economy opened with the Rector of the Lahore School of Economics, Dr.
Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, recalling that the first conference last year had
seen a good gathering of policy makers led by the Governor of the State
Bank Dr. Ishrat Hussain, the private sector comprising bankers and
industrialists, and academia. The dialogue generated on public policy had
been both intense and diverse, ranging across macro, sectoral and
institutional issues, especially edifying for the student body of the School.
Dr. Shahid Amjad discussed how this experience warranted the
institutionalisation of an annual conference, hence this second conference.
The tradition had also been set for the Governor of the State Bank of
Pakistan to deliver the inaugural address at the conference.
KEYWORDS:
Lahore School, Pakistan, second, annual conference, Pakistan economy, management.
JEL:
N/A.
Key Challenges in Economic Management of Pakistan
Taufiq A. Hussain
Published:Sept 2006
This paper points out that GDP growth is fundamentally on track
although a little below the expected 7% target owing to commodity sector
weaknesses. The rising trend in unemployment has been reversed over
2002-04. It is expected that longer trend growth over the decade will be
over 6%. However, there are certain macroeconomic imbalances, the
current account deficit, the widening savings-investment gap and
inflationary pressures, that need to be managed.
Pakistan’s economy continues to remain on a high-growth trajectory
during the current fiscal year, though the real GDP growth rate for the year
seems likely to be lower than the 7 percent target. The expectation of the
slowdown, relative to the FY06 annual target, owes principally to the
(estimated) weakness in the commodity producing sectors of the economy,
the impact of which will be partially offset by an anticipated above-target
performance of the services sector.
KEYWORDS:
Pakistan, economic management.
JEL:
N/A.
Published:Sept 2006
The paper addresses the structural rigidities in the fiscal system.
The fiscal rigidity has resulted in a fiscal overhang over the monetary
policy of the SBP. The author contends that policy should be geared to
reduce the fiscal tax burden on the formal sector and to reduce the fiscal
domination over monetary policy.
KEYWORDS:
Fiscal system, Pakistan, structural rigidities, monetary policy.
JEL:
N/A.
External Account and Foreign Debt Management
Ashfaque H. Khan
Published:Sept 2006
The paper highlights strong gains in the macro area. The author
also shows how total debt as a percentage of GDP has declined from 100%
in 2000 to 61% in 2005. This had resulted from a debt restructuring with
the Paris Club in 2001 and also due to the re-appraisal of GDP, which has
lowered the debt burden as well.
We should first focus on the external account, which is very topical
in both newspapers and TV. The trade deficit has widened significantly. It is
therefore very appropriate to understand what is the external balance.
Should we worry about it widening? Should the country across our border
also worry, because they are also facing a greater deficit?
KEYWORDS:
GDP, Pakistan, foreign debt, debt burden.
JEL:
N/A.
Intergovernmental Resource Transfers: Prospects and Issues
Mohammad Zubair Khan
Published:Sept 2006
The focus of this paper is on inter governmental resource transfers.
The question of these transfers crops up because of an asymmetry between
revenues and expenditures. Since the federal government earns 90% of the
revenues, while the provincial governments spend 25% of the revenues, this
calls for transfers from the federal to the provincial governments under the
aegis of the National Finance Commission. The allocations through the
NFC have increased substantively over time.
Pakistan is a federation of four provinces, unequal in area,
population and levels of economic and social development. The ethnic
distinction of provinces makes horizontal equity in development vital to
political stability and national cohesion. The separation of East Pakistan
from the federation in 1971 was rooted in a perception, right or wrong, of
economic injustice. The adoption of the 1973 Constitution with unanimous1
support of all remaining provinces, by addressing many of the contentious
economic issues, provided the country another opportunity to address
regional economic disparities and to strengthen the federation.
Unfortunately, violations of the Constitutional mandate as well as partisan
interpretation of various Articles of the Constitution over the last 33 years
have aggravated economic disparities between the provinces and rekindled
perceptions of economic injustice among the provinces.
KEYWORDS:
intergovernmental resource transfers, federal government, expenditures, Pakistan.
JEL:
N/A.
Key Issues in Industrial Growth in Pakistan
A. R. Kemal
Published:Sept 2006
The author here looks at problems in the manufacturing sector.
One macro enigma is that while growth had recently risen to 8%,
investment levels as a ratio of GDP seem to have fallen. One reason for this
is the re-evaluation upwards of the GDP. But the same issue emerges in
manufacturing with very high growth rates coinciding with falling
investment levels. The declining investment levels could be due to a number
of factors including high production costs, transaction costs, policy
continuity risks, skills and wages and changes in the demand structure.
KEYWORDS:
GDP, Pakistan, industrial growth, manufacturing sector.
JEL:
N/A.
Why Pakistan Must Break-into the Knowledge Economy
Rashid Amjad
Published:Sept 2006
The author emphasizes in this paper that this was the moment in
Pakistan’s economic trajectory for it to learn to leap frog technologically
from a labor intensive economy, by passing the intermediate stages of
resource based and scale based activities, to a knowledge based economy. A
knowledge based economy is one that bases its growth not on increasing
capital or land or labor inputs, but on knowledge. The transition required
is considerable, the author points out.
There is growing recognition that the global economy is increasingly
driven by “knowledge” rather than the traditional factors of production.
Pakistan’s Medium-Term Development Framework (MTDF) 2005-2010 and
Vision 2030 Approach Paper both recognize the key role of knowledge in
economic growth when they describe the goal of transforming Pakistan by
2030 into a “Developed, industrialized, just and prosperous Pakistan
through rapid and sustained development … by deploying knowledge
inputs”.1
KEYWORDS:
Pakistan, knowledge economy, trajectory, technology.
JEL:
N/A.
Local Government Finance in Pakistan Post 2001
Shahid Kardar
Published:Sept 2006
The paper calls for financial devolution from the federal and
provincial levels to the local level. The author argues that the present high
degree of centralization has failed to deliver an adequate level of social
services. In addition, while the more important services such as education,
health and water supply had devolved to the local level, higher levels of
government imposed constraints on their expenditures.
KEYWORDS:
Pakistan, local government, financial devolution.
JEL:
N/A.
Federal and Provincial Public Management and the Civil Service Paradigm
Javed Hasan Aly
Published:Sept 2006
This paper discusses the institutional structures of the civil service.
The author traces four periods in this service, pre-1971, 1972-1977, 1978-
1999 and 2000 onwards. In the first time period the author maintains the
service worked well. In the second, the paradigm was vitiated. In the third
period the anarchy continued by default. And in the last period the
anarchy continued by accident. The author attempts to illustrate the
growing disincentives in the paradigm for efficiency.
KEYWORDS:
service worked well, paradigm was vitiated, anarchy continued by default.
JEL:
N/A.