This article will attempt to answer the question why the redistribution of land ownership (i.e. land reform) is important and even necessary for our society's progress and development. Why there remains a crying need to concretely study the question of agrarian land ownership and all it implies in terms of political and economic power distribution and its social fallout in the rural milieu. Let us begin with an examination of how the present land ownership patterns originated and evolved. A discussion of the pattern of agrarian land ownership must necessarily take as its main focus the areas where agriculture is the mainstay. That inevitably means the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. The other two provinces, NWFP and Balochistan, with the exception of some relatively limited areas where canal fed or barani cultivation exists, have economies that are mixed pastoral/agricultural, an economic base reflective of their surviving tribal structures.
KEYWORDS: Land Reform, land ownership, agrarian reforms, Pakistan, economic distribution.
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Child labour exists throughout the third world including Pakistan. For some unknown reason, the Western Press has chosen to single out Pakistan to decry the system. The May 1997 issue of the Readers’ Digest carried a particularly vicious article entitled `No Life for a Child’ giving harrowing tales of beatings and other forms of coercion to make little children in Pakistan to work in factories. Advantage is taken of the fact that there has been no census in the country for two decades to bloat the figures of child labour. One estimate going the rounds is 15 million. But the more popular figure is 8 million which both UNICEF and SAARC have adopted. ILO produced a figure of 6.3 million till, in 1996 it sponsored a survey which turned up the figure of 3.3 million. In a country with a population of 132 million, every man, woman and child of which is under a debt burden of about Rs 13,021 per annum the figure of 3.3 million labouring children should not take anyone by surprise. Not that this is any justification for child labour.
KEYWORDS: Child Labour, welfare, enforcement, ILO, UNICEF, social welfare, education.
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Policy formulation and implementation are the chief, though not the only, business of a modern government, implying exercise of its power. In a democracy the people themselves grant permission to the government to exercise power in their name. Thus through the democratic process power is transformed into legitimate authority. However, there is a feeling that a policy, formulated through due procedures at the highest echelons of the government, is sometimes not implemented in the same spirit or in the same way as was originally intended by the policy makers. Thus there If need to locate and identify the points where such lapses take place.
KEYWORDS: Policy formulation, policy implementation, political leadership, administrative leadership.
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In economics we study how and why “people” whether they are consumers, firms, non-profit organisations or government agencies make decisions about the use of valuable limited resources. When studying the environment from an economics perspective we are in fact primarily focusing on how and why “people” make decisions that have environmental consequences. Secondly, we focus on how we can manage institutions to bring these environmental impacts more into balance with changing human demands and the demands of the ecosystem itself. If we follow this economic approach several answers emerge to the basic question asked in environmental economics, that is “Why do people behave in ways that cause environmental degradation?”
KEYWORDS: Environmental resources, environmental economics, environmental impacts, Pakistan.
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In this paper we cite evidence regarding the likely impact of IMF/World Bank policies on labour and the poor in Pakistan. Our findings show that since the 1987 bout of structural adjustment, public sector employment has decreased while wages have been frozen. Also, overall unemployment in occupations with a high incidence of the poor has dramatically increased and real wages of skilled and unskilled labour sharply declined. In addition, subsidies that were critical to the consumption pattern of the poor have been cut while the burden of indirect taxes on the poorest income group has increased. Not surprisingly, there has been an increase in poverty and inequality, particularly in the rural areas.
KEYWORDS: Structural adjustment, Pakistan, IMF, International Monetary Fund, structural adjustment agreements.
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The diverse growth experience of economies across the globe is perhaps the most intriguing question that the economics profession faces. The economies of East Asia have grown rapidly over the past three decades, while the economic performance of the South Asian and Latin American countries has been relatively mediocre, although better than that of the African countries, where the per capita incomes have been generally declining. Among the developed countries also, there has been considerable diversity of economic performance. There is no dearth of research on the question, but there is little agreement among economists on what explains the diversity of economic growth experience. One reason for the absence of consensus is that economic growth is a relatively recent phenomenon and we, as economists or social scientists, still do not understand well what factors bring it about. Sustained economic expansion and rise in living standards can be traced back only to the late eighteenth century, i.e., the time when the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain. This is not to suggest that there had been little social or economic change prior to that epoch. Quite the contrary. Agricultural practices had been improved over time, and there is a rich record of the mastery and ingenuity of artisans all over the world. But such improvements in products and processes as occurred over the period prior to the Industrial Revolution somehow did not become an economic force, leading to a general improvement in the living standards.
KEYWORDS: Global economy, analytics, growth, technology, total factor productivity, TFP.
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In the post war world, numerous attempts at all levels – multinational, bilateral and domestic – have been made to foster growth and development in the low income world so that these countries can catch up with their richer brethren from the industrial countries. Why has growth not been faster? What can be done to make these countries achieve more balanced and sustainable growth? These are important questions of the day that are preoccupying all serious positive social science and development policymaking. To a large extent, many of the answers that are being derived relate to the failure of these countries to develop key institutions. Most practitioners and thinkers are now in agreement on this issue but remain perplexed at what is required to develop these institutions. The public sector’s attempts at developing the institutions within its fold have not succeeded. The fostering of non-governmental institutions also remains fairly uneven in its results. Donor funding for institutional support too has had very limited results despite the extensive history of sectoral and institutional reform that has been supported by substantial financial and technical assistance and resources.
KEYWORDS: Growth, Development, institutions, institution-building, donors.
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The Pakistan economy is currently going through a period of much needed structural adjustment focusing on: (i) Reducing fiscal deficits from about 6 to 4 per cent of GDP, which should reduce public sector borrowing and bring down interest rates and inflation; (ii) Reducing tariffs from an average of about 80 per cent in 1993 to about 60 per cent currently and about 45 per cent next year – which while requiring painful adjustments particularly in the industrial sectors, should make Pakistan more competitive in the long term and also benefit consumers; (iii) Reducing the size of the public sector in the economy by privatizing nationalized banks, nationalized and public sector industry and public utilities including power, gas and telecommunications, which should increase the efficiency of these sectors. All these measures have implications for employment generation. In the short term they are slowing down the economy and therefore employment creation is not taking place at the earlier higher rates. In the long term they should help stabilize the economy and add significantly to economic growth.
KEYWORDS: Pakistan economy, employment generation, employment, government policy, GDP, formal employment.
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For an increasing number of people around the world, habitation is not a question of good or bad architecture but of shelter, food, health and economic survival, a question of political empowerment, domination and the control over resources, and ultimately a question of criteria and goals of “development” and “progress”. With their heroic manifestoes, at the beginning of the century the modern movement had set out to transform the world. Architects, the champions of industry and the new mass production technologies were to bring prosperity, happiness and joy to all mankind. With mechanised production of buildings and new modes of transpiration we were to build clean, healthy, well designed, comfortable and aesthetically satisfying new cities. At the center of much of these dreams were the habitation s of the common man. Yet today, at the close of the century after some remarkable “progress” and “development” and despite a profusion of ingenious buildings by a galaxy of brilliant architects, the world, the real world inhabited by a very large section of humanity, has been transformed not into the promised paradise but into a living hell.
KEYWORDS: Urban development, Pakistan, Lahore, poverty, technology, global warming.
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First, an overview of the world economy to provide us with the stark evidence of the deep economic and social crisis which the world still faces despite the process of far reaching economic reforms and adjustments which many countries have undertaken over the past decade and a half, Global unemployment today, as a proportion of potential employment, is higher than at any time since the Great Depression. Of a world labour force estimated at 2.8 billion people, an estimated 30 per cent are not productively employed. More than 120 million people are registered as unemployed throughout the world, in that they seek and are available for work but cannot find it. An estimated 700 million people are underemployed, the ‘working poor’, and they form the bulk of the estimated 1.1 billion absolute poor in the world. With new entrants joining the labour force at an increasing rate, the pressures on the employment situation and poverty problem will further intensify in the coming years. Recent economic trends are not very encouraging. In 1993, for the fourth year in succession, average world per capita income fell. In 1992-93, the employment situation worsened in most countries, whether developed, developing or in transition. Outside East and South-East Asia, even if employment levels were sustained, it was usually at the price of falling wages. Employment conditions have also changed considerably and in many cases deteriorated – the risk of job loss persists, young people especially find it more and more difficult to get employment, and the informalisation of employment in urban areas continues as more people turn towards self-employment.
KEYWORDS: Structural reform, economy, stabilisation, employment levels, unemployment, macro-economics, macro-economic stability.
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