The obvious fact of female under-representation in educational management across cultures and nations is mentioned in every relevant study. Interestingly this phenomenon transcends the dichotomies such as developed/under-developed, Eastern/Western, Muslim/non-Muslim, First/ Third World countries. Variations are more often due to situational differences. For example, the percentage of female representation in higher education management for the U.S., Britain and China as given by Lyn Davies is respectively 24, 13, and 26 per cent (1992-6; Also see Coleman: 1996), 20-30 per cent in Pakistan (Ibid:4). These statistics could be misleading for generalisation purposes if it is assumed that a higher percentage means more educated women or less gender discrimination. We know that a comparatively higher percentage of women managers in Pakistan is because of 'women only' institutions. In the contexts where management jobs are open to men and women, women are in extremely low numbers, and the situation is not very different in other countries. This paper examines the socio-cultural barriers to female participation in management - in positions of power and authority. There is no denying the existence of structural and professional deterrents for aspiring and ambitious women, but the argument is that no laws can enforce equality and social justice unless equality is socially acknowledged and practised. The significance of how gender is conceived, perceived and culturally represented cannot be ignored in perpetuating structures in spite of all efforts towards resistance (Skeggs:1991).
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International economic policy is now more under the sway of orthodox economics than it has ever been. The main international economic institutions, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and the major developed economies are unremitting advocates of free trade and impose their views on the developing countries. And the developing countries, whose attempts at economic development through protection have mostly failed, are on the whole inclined to accept these views. Over the last twenty years economic policy in these countries has more and more come to be formulated by orthodox neo-classical economists, often described in the press as “reformers”, who advocate more reliance on markets and less protection against imports. Yet economic performance around the world has not been better over the last twenty years than it was in the earlier period of the 1950s, - 60s and –70s. On the contrary, it has mostly been worse, the main exceptions being a few East Asian economies, including China, that have not on the whole been notable for the freedom of their markets or external trade, and, over the last ten years, the US. Economic growth rates of the world as a whole in the later period have been well below the rates of the earlier period. Income inequalities within countries have increased almost everywhere, except in the East Asian economies mentioned and possibly a few West European economies with large social protection systems. In Latin America, where liberalisation has been pursued with the most earnest, the bulk of the population appears to be worse off than it was twenty years ago. Unemployment rates seem to have increased in most countries, except the successful East Asian economies and the US, and has become a major concern in the West European countries that have done best in containing income inequalities. International financial crises, if not more frequent than before, are severer and especially damaging to the developing countries. They include the debt crisis of the 1980s, the “peso” crisis of 1994-95, the East Asia crisis that began in 1997 and the present problems of Brazil and several other Latin American countries. The notable exception in recent years to this deterioration has been the US, which has grown continuously over the last ten years and reduced its unemployment to the rates of the 1960s. Its success, though, is no evidence of the advantages of freer trade. The view popularised by some economists and the media, that it somehow indicates productivity growth caused by the freer markets and restructuring of firms, has no independent 90 The Lahore Journal of Economics, Vol.4, No.1 empirical support. If it were correct, productivity in the US would have been rising exceptionally fast, and would, therefore, be exceptionally high now. Yet detailed comparisons with other developed countries do not show productivity in the US to be especially high.1 In contrast, the countries that are supposedly the greatest laggards in restructuring their firms, Germany and Japan, are consistently successful exporters and run large trade surpluses. Which means that production in the US has risen, not by some unusual acceleration of productivity, but in the usual way, through investment. Since the saving rate of the US has always been low by the standards of the developed countries and is now zero, it means that the investment has been financed by the rest of the world. This is apparent from the US balance of payments, which shows that the net inflow of capital to the US each year since the mid-1980s has, on average, been several times greater than the total gross inflow to the developing countries.2 Moreover, many developing countries are net exporters of capital to the US. To this must be added the great gains to the US from terms of trade movements in recent years, which have been mostly at the expense of the developing countries. For these developing countries, in particular, the economic performance of the US is not evidence that they will benefit from free trade.
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Similar to most countries, the objectives of the taxation system in Pakistan are not well-defined. Historically, the primary objective has been resource generation for the government. The taxation system has simultaneously addressed the secondary objectives of promoting area/sectorspecific economic activities, discouraging undesired imports/production, encouraging savings and investment. These objectives were met through a variety of tax concessions and exemptions, rebates and credits, differentiated tax rates and tariffs. The revenue shortfalls/leakages resulting from preferential tax treatment of the desired activities were offset through appropriate changes in various fiscal instruments, e.g. high tax rates and tariffs, regulatory duties, extended withholding and presumptive taxes, excise duties on services, and many more. These measures, in turn, complicated the taxation system and adversely affected the equity, neutrality and progressivity thereof. Consequent to the pursuit of conflicting objectives, Pakistan's taxation system is characterised by a number of structural problems. These include:- (i) The low overall level of fiscal effort and the Tax-to-GDP ratio remains more or less stagnant at between 12 to 13 per cent. (ii) There is over dependence on indirect taxes notwithstanding that the share of direct taxes has increased from 16 per cent in 1990- 91 to over 35 per cent during 1997-98. This has increased the regressivity of the taxation system and imposed a higher excess burden of taxation. (iii) Amongst indirect taxes, the dominant share continues from taxes on international trade (both customs duties and sales tax) which has promoted inefficiency, distorted resource allocation and encouraged illicit trade. * The author is former Member, Tax Policy, CBR and is presently posted as Member, Monopoly Control Authority, Ministry of Finance, Islamabad. 116 The Lahore Journal of Economics, Vol.4, No.1 (iv) Effective tax bases of most taxes is narrow due to wide ranging exemptions/concessions and rampant tax evasion. (v) The tax administration is characterised by conventional and inefficient work distribution, out-moded procedures, lack of appropriate skills, dependence on manual rather than automated functioning, considerable arbitrariness and discretion. The common perception about the taxation system is of corruption, inefficiency and arbitrariness. With the background of the above structural problems and growing institutional decline and erosion of fiscal, financial and administrative discipline, low economic growth and high fiscal deficits, governments at various times have attempted serious structural reforms. Several task forces, committees and commissions on tax reforms were constituted to examine the reform issues and to recommend appropriate steps to improve the tax effort. The latest of such efforts was undertaken by the present government immediately after it assumed office in February 1997. The fiscal component of the Economic Reforms Package of March 1997 and the subsequent policy announcements through the 1997 and 1998 Budgets are part of a series of steps in this direction. Notwithstanding these major policy initiatives, adequate expansion of effective tax bases and increase in revenues as a percentage of GDP still remains a dream unfulfilled.
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University Press, Karachi. 1999 pp 451, Price: Rs. 550/- Ishrat Hussain, a former Pakistani civil servant and currently a World Bank official, has been writing on Pakistan's economy for the national print media. Much like the professional economist that he is, his views reflect an objective approach to a vast range of economic issues. It was now time for him to correlate his analysis of individual problems and sectors to a macroeconomic framework and make some sense out of Pakistan's baffling styles of economic management. How could a compact economy with a rich resource endowment be reduced to the position of a basket case? Hussain's hypothesis: a small group of elites managed to "hijack the state" and "rig the market" for its own exclusive benefit. The "Elitist State" now controls both the private and public sector. No matter which way the economy turns ___ market mechanism or state control ___, the goodies will inevitably land, and are actually landing, in the hands of the controlling elites. It is no surprise thus that the regimes, whether relying on state or market, are characterised by a similar lack of integrity and the same type of management lapses.
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Anirudh Krishna, Norman Uphoff and Milton J. Esman (Eds). Reasons for Hope: Instructive Experiences in Rural Development. Sage Publications. New Delhi. 1998. vii + 322pp. Indian rupees 250 (Pb). The development of rural areas is now becoming one of the major objectives of government policy in less developed countries. It has become part of policy simply because governments in developing countries are beginning to realise that to tackle poverty effectively, and to reduce the pressure on urban centres, income levels, as well as the quality of life in rural areas has to be made significantly attractive to prevent people from migrating to the relatively higher income urban areas. Rapid urbanisation in many developing countries has resulted in increased social stress which is reflected in high crime rates, and a substantial decline in social services such as education and health, water supply and sanitation, electricity and housing, etc. The developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are afflicted with both problems - rural poverty/environmental degradation and a rapidly urbanising sector that is estimated to double every twelve to fifteen years.
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Rafi Raza, (Ed.), Pakistan in Perspective, 1947-1997, Oxford University Press, 1997. pp. 320. This is undoubtedly a most useful, updated collection of articles on various aspects of the Pakistani canvas. It is a valuable contribution given the relative paucity of material and literature on such topics. Aside from the somewhat tedious chapter on foreign policy, tiresome by virtue mainly of its bulk (stretching over a total of about a hundred pages in its entirety), the articles make for interesting and refreshing reading for not merely the specialist but the layperson as well. If length is any indication of importance, then surely it is a case of misplaced priorities to have given so much space to a subject such as foreign policy and, in comparison, the pieces on such vitally crucial issues as population planning and human rights are allocated, for whatever reason, a considerably less quantum of space in the book.
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Saeed Shafqat (ed.), Contemporary Issues in Pakistan Studies, Azad Enterprises, Lahore, 1998. Pages: 270. Price: Rs. 300 (HB); Rs. 100 (PB). This is the second edition of Dr. Saeed Shafqat's popular and well received book, the first edition of which came out in 1995. Pakistan studies has been an integral part of the country's educational syllabi and competitive examinations for many years now. Unfortunately the syllabi for our school, college and university students reflect a narrow definition of the subject. Not much attention has been paid to historical authenticity and accuracy of facts. The approach in general is simplistic and one is sorry to note, jingoistic. No wonder this discipline, whose importance cannot be overemphasised, fails to capture the minds and imagination of the young students and the level of perceptions manifested by its study are abysmally low. There is need to raise the tone and level of debate and to move beyond the Pakistan Movement to which this subject has largely been confined. Even here the treatment is by and large narrow and simplistic.
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Government health expenditures as a percentage of GDP have declined in Pakistan, though not in absolute real terms, over the structural adjustment period. Progress over this period is evident on a number of health indicators. However, Pakistan still lags far behind the means of low income countries and South Asian countries in all child survival statistics. In view of this, and since the evidence shows a significant and sizeable association of public sector health expenditures and the decline in infant mortality rates, there seems little justification in cutting public sector expenditures.
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The assumption that people were to be given theatre was of course in keeping with the government fiction that people were to be given development particularly if they behaved themselves. (Wa Thiong’o, 1986:41) Despite our short history, the norms of scholarship in Pakistan have already become well entrenched: the grooves already seem so deep that digging ourselves out of them may present some difficulties. (One example of that in the social sciences generally, and political science and history in particular, is the retelling of the major historical events and noting major trends without offering any remarkably new interpretations). The need, in other words, of newer and different understanding of where we are and how we got there is considerable. One purpose of introducing Escobar’s (1997) Encountering Development and related materials is to offer an opportunity to get out of these academic ruts. Specifically, two exits are simultaneously provided by Escobar; one lets us interrogate the dominant narrative of development, and the other enables us to consider the possibilities that postmodernism opens up. He applies the latter to the former, which is an uncomplicated way to make what is valuable in postmodernism clear and accessible. (In what follows, the numbers in parenthesis refer to pages in Escobar’s work). Perhaps an appropriate way to introduce postmodernist analysis is to acknowledge that observation is not possible without observers; when taken seriously, its implications are profound. An equally relevant insight is that the criteria for evaluation are not separate from the phenomena to which they are applied; the two are related. Postmodernists “respond to normative claims of others by displaying the processes of thought, writing, and power on which those very normative claims are based” (Cahoone, 1996: 15-16). Furthermore, there is no independent reality out there that can be discovered by neutral observers; instead, “discourse is the process through which social reality comes into being “ (39)1.
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Of all mankind’s adventures in search of peace and justice, arbitration is amongst the earliest. Long before law was established, or courts were organised, or judges had formulated principles of law, man had resorted to arbitration for the resolution of discord, the adjustment of differences and the settlement of disputes. One of the recurring themes in International Business Arbitration is the tension between the will of the parties and the ability of states of regulate the conduct of arbitration proceedings. The general trend in international commercial arbitration is to respect, within limits, the will of the parties regarding the choice of law and the procedure for carrying out their arbitration. Thus, party autonomy is recognised as one of the cardinal elements of international business arbitration. The past decade has witnessed an expansion in the scope of arbitrable matters. Such expansion is exemplified by Mitsubishi Motors Corp. V. Solar 1 Chryster-Ohlymoutt1 in which the United States Supreme Court held that antitrust disputes arising from international contracts are arbitrable. The court reached this conclusion against the background of a number of U.S. cases which considered antitrust law fundamental to the ideological and economic integrity of the United States.2 Underlying the Supreme Court’s decision in Mitsubishi was the presumption that the arbitrators in the case would respect the imperative provisions of the U.S. Sherman Act (which embodies U.S. antitrust principles), despite the fact that the applicable law in the case was Swiss Law.
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