Pakistan is enduring a serious economic downturn and facing the probability of the collapse of the banking and financial systems. The growth outlook is meek and risk of default is hanging over the head of the nation as a sword. Banking and financial institutions and economic systems of Pakistan like that of ASEAN and other crises hit countries, suffer from bad loans, political interference, corruption, declining exports, budget and trade deficits, internal and external debts, crashes of stock exchanges, currency mismanagement, and double digit inflation. While 'survival of the fittest’ is ever a self-evident truth, the lessons of the rise and fall of nations are important for survival. In order to meet the challenge of survival, it may be crucial to learn the underlying causes that accounted for and understand the strategies and reforms that attempted to manage the economies of the countries suffering from the crises.
KEYWORDS: Banking crises, economic crises, financial systems, sustainable growth patterns, economic systems, Asia, Europe.
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Educational expenditure as a percentage of GDP has indeed been protected and over the first phase of SAP (1993-1996) has increased by about 0.2 per cent of GDP. However, despite SAP protection, it declined to the preSAP level for 1998-99. While there is evidence that, in some aspects, the gender and regional gaps have closed, the poorest continue to be excluded from schooling, the rural female income gap in schooling has widened and, if the poor do attend, they are the most likely to drop out. Also, net enrollment rates for boys and girls actually declined over the first SAP period.
KEYWORDS: Pakistan, Social Action Plan, SAP, education, poverty strategy, gender, rural enrollments (sic).
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In this age of globalisation, multiple pressures are intensifying for the under developed and developing countries. It is a struggle for economic survival, where the larger fish will eat up any small fish not clever enough to learn the rules of the game. In this market oriented competitive world, management development has increasingly become linked with economic output. Additionally, education is no more just an intellectual exercise. It is compulsively being recognised as a large sector of human and financial resources, requiring strategic management and a purposeful development of the concerned personnel for quality and effectiveness.
KEYWORDS: Management development, organisational theory, education, educational institutions, organisational development.
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This paper is divided into three sections. The first section goes over the major developments in consumer choice theory1 over time and contrasts the approaches of Marshall, Hicks and Samuelson. In the second section is an inquiry into the nature of utility and a hypothesis is developed in the Marshallian tradition. The hypothesis is built on the grounds that utility is not a homegenous concept as is conventionally believed. The last section is concerned with identifying some theoretical and philosophical implications of the hypothesis for economics.
KEYWORDS: Marshall, Hicks, Samuelson, consumer choice theory, revealed preference theory.
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The informal sector plays a significant role in Pakistan’s economy as well as in other developing countries. The role of the informal sector in solving the unemployment problem of Third World countries has become the focus of a conceptual and empirical debate in recent years. Most of the research takes a favourable view of this sector and suggests that it should be used as a policy instrument for the solution of the most pressing problems of developing countries, such as unemployment, poverty, income inequalities, etc. Before proceeding further, we will define the informal sector and differentiate it from the formal sector. There are various definitions, but the one given in an ILO report (1972) is generally considered the best. According to this report, informal sector activities are ways of doing things characterised by a heterogeneous array of economic activities with relative ease of entry, reliance on indigenous resources; temporary or variable structure and family ownership of enterprises, small scale of operation, labour intensive and adapted technology, skills acquired outside the formal school system, not depending on formal financial institutions for its credit needs; unregulated and unregistered units, and not observing fixed hours/days of operation.
KEYWORDS: Pakistan, informal sector, rural informal sector, developing sector, formal sector, employment, unemployment, rural women, working women.
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Few would deny that there is increasing disillusionment with democracy as practised today in Pakistan. The experience with dictatorships has been equally disenchanting. Since both dictatorships and elected governments have failed, a common refrain these days is the need to empower people through democratisation, decentralisation and opening up of new avenues for participation in politics to enable them to change their own destinies.
KEYWORDS: Pakistan, power structures, role of the state, institutional structures, representation, empowerment.
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Profit sharing refers to the splitting of profit between two or more business partners. It is a substitute to the interest system where one partner gets a fixed return irrespective of business performance. In the past two decades profit sharing has captured the attention of policy makers and researchers alike. This increased interest has been roused by factors including research interests in the West, practical supremacy of the system and commitment to Islam. Martin Wietzman (1984, 1987, 1990) carried out research work on profit sharing, which gave respectability to the concept. Japan, during its boom era, used profit sharing in a small segment of the labour market. The UK passed legislation to provide tax incentives to encourage the adoption of profit - related pay schemes and following Islamic principles, a few Muslim economies attempted to modify banking practices in line with Islamic principles.
KEYWORDS: Pakistan, community saving, investment, profit, loss sharing, micro level, return on investment, savers.
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The educational system in Pakistan is beset with multiple dilemmas and constraints. Some are underlying and deep-rooted, while others are rooted in immediate, superficial reasons. Understandably all are inter linked and each affects the other. One that pervades as an under current is the issue of lack of Equal Opportunity (EO) which takes myriad forms when translated into practice. This paper delineates the various forms the absence or imbalanced prevalence of EO takes within the context of the education system of the country, and primary education in particular.
KEYWORDS: Pakistan, educational system, social development, statistical data, literacy, poor education indicators.
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Textile is one of the most heavily protected sector in developed countries. This paper addresses the issue of anti-dumping measures, a new form of trade restriction. Protectionism is still common place in textiles, tariffs remain high and progress in eliminating import quotas has been slow. In fact, protectionism is on the rise in a new guise: anti-dumping cases against Asian countries are multiplying in the US, EU and around the world. Pakistani textiles (yarn, unbleached grey cotton fabric and bed-linen) exports are being increasingly subjected to the initiation of anti-dumping investigations, which creates uncertainty and depresses business sentiment. Investigation periods are quite lengthy and the legal costs of defending against these cases are enormous. These result in a great loss of time that could be better spent in a productive manner. This phenomenon is a matter of great concern because it has created a damaging impact on the normal growth of trade. In fact, by merely initiating an anti-dumping case against exporting country's manufacturers, or even just threatening to do so, developed countries producers can cause extensive disruption to the market for an extended period of time. At the end of the day, whether dumping and injury are proven may no longer matter for some Asian manufacturers, who could be driven out of the market simply as a result of the case being initiated.
KEYWORDS: Anti-dumping, protectionism, WTO, Pakistan, procedural rules, ADP agreement, preliminary affirmative determination.
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Micro-finance is an idea which occurred to developing countries considerably late in the day. When during the colonial era, the modern sector and its peculiar institutional framework emerged in the South Asian continent, the system catered to the needs of the modern sector i.e. trade and industry. Agriculture did not receive the kind of attention that it deserved although colonial rule was responsible for destroying the viability of this vital sector. A compensatory effort to provide finance for the rural sector would have been in order. However, this task was left to the cooperatives and informal sources of credit. The governments in the colonial system only undertook “distress lending” in the form of Taccavi loans on a somewhat limited scale.
KEYWORDS: Micro-finance, rural credit, Third World, cheap credit, assessment, India.
JEL: N/A.