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Published:Jan - June 1998
In any economic system, be it a free market or a command economy,
the elementary functions of production, distribution and consumption take
place within the natural world. The natural world provides the raw materials
and the energy inputs for the production process whereas production and
consumption leave “residuals” or waste products which go back into nature.
The manner in which the residuals are handled will infact tell us how they
may lead to pollution or the degradation of the natural environment.
(a) explains nature in its role as a product of raw materials and (b) explains
what the impact of residuals is on the natural world. Therefore we can see
that environmental economics draws from two angles. Primarily it is the
study of waste flow management and secondly, it studies the impacts of
human activity on environmental resources. Thus one’s misconception of
environmental problems only being constrained to pollution are removed.
Infact, environmental economics focuses not only on pollution oriented
problems but also looks at issues such as habitat disruption caused by
human activities in an economic system.
A good example of this is a housing development scheme which will
disrupt the natural habitat and at the same time bring an array of problems
such as sanitation, house waste disposal, etc. Analysing the environment
from the perspective of an economic system we have to establish how this
KEYWORDS:
Environment, Economic Systems, pollution, nature, resources, environmental problems.
JEL:
N/A.
Book Reviews: Just Development: Beyond Adjustment with a Human Face
Viqar Ahmed
Published:Jan - June 1998
Tariq Banuri, Shahrukh Rafi Khan and Moazam Mahmood (ed.), Just
Development: Beyond Adjustment with a Human Face, Karachi, Oxford
University Press, 1997. Pp. 207. Price not mentioned.
The Oxford series of books published on the occasion of the golden
jubilee of Pakistan’s independence constitute a welcome and high quality
addition to material on various facets of life in the country. “Just
Development” reviews Pakistan’s development from the human angle and
looks at the structural adjustment programme, debating whether it is
possible to have “adjustment with a human face”.
Perhaps the most enduring element of our development strategies
has been the relegation of social objectives to low priority and the
consequent neglect of social sectors. This has been as true of decades of
high growth – 1960s and 1980s – as of those of low growth – 1950s, 1970s
and 1990s. Why?
KEYWORDS:
golden jubilee, Pakistan’s independence, constitute, human face, government, bureaucracy.
JEL:
N/A.
Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, his personality and his politics
Syed M. Salim
Published:Jan - June 1998
S.M. Burke and Salim Al-Din Quraishi, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, his personality and his politics, Karachi, Oxford University Press pp
412 Rs. 495/-.
A convincing vindication of the Quaid’s Conversion from Ambassador of
Hindu-Muslim unity to founding father of Pakistan.
A book which most Pakistanis have been waiting for for the past five
years or so, has at last been published by The Oxford University Press,
Karachi (1997) as part of their Jubilee Series. A dispassionate study of the
Quaid’s life and his personality illustrates that he was a luminary in three
different walks of life. Firstly, as one of undivided India’s renowned legal
practitioners; secondly, one of it’s leading legislators and, thirdly, as one of
it’s leading politicians. It is universally recognised that the Quaid attained
not only world stature, but won a permanent place in world history.
Through his dynamic and inspiring leadership, he not only won
independence from the then British colonial rule, but had the sole
distinction of altering the world map by carving into existence the largest
Muslim state of its time in the comity of nations – bigger than the United
Kingdom and France put together. It is the role of a leading politician
which this latest publication principally deals with.
KEYWORDS:
Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, personality illustrates, legal practitioners, legislators, politicians.
JEL:
N/A.
Published:Jan - June 1998
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.
KEYWORDS:
Book review, Pakistan, economic development, human rights.
JEL:
N/A.
Published:July - Dec 1997
Pakistan’s economic reforms that were set in motion in 1991 rest on
the tripod of privatisation, domestic deregulation and trade liberalisation. A
critical component for strengthening the reforms and improving their
effectiveness will be the availability and quality of human resources for
accelerating industrial growth.
This paper, therefore, attempts to:
a) Review the success of Pakistan's vocational and technical education
institutions in satisfying the market demand for various skills.
b) Based on these assessments, identify the key constraints to the
availability of technical skills and make recommendations on how the
government can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of training
arrangements.
KEYWORDS:
Technical training, vocational training, labour demand, workforce, manpower, public sector, public sector training.
JEL:
N/A.
Towards a Theoretical Framework for an Analysis of Corruption
Moazam Mahmud
Published:July - Dec 1997
This is a conceptual paper on the analytics of the phenomena of
economic corruption. And it is very much a working paper, begging
comments. The paper concentrates on what appears on first reflection a
redundant question -what is the impact of corruption? The almost knee jerk
answer is loss of income. However, when modelling economic corruption we
run into the problems of determining the questions of: loss of income for
whom - the principal, the agent, the state, the consumer, the economy? -
how? and by how much?
KEYWORDS:
Corruption, macroeconomy, macroeconomics, comprehensive model, analysis.
JEL:
N/A.
Governance in an International Institution - The World Bank and its Reorganisations
Sikander Rahim
Published:July - Dec 1997
The governance of an institution is normally partly ensured by other
institutions, which depend on yet other institutions for their governance.
But who ultimately guards the guardians? For the liberal electoral
democracies of Europe and America the answer that evolved from the
political thought of the eighteenth century and the limited liability joint
stock company of the nineteenth was, crudely put, checks and balances and
voters, who could be the electorate or shareholders. Its limitation is that it
presupposes a state and the right of the voters to vote in their own interest.
How, then, can good governance be ensured for international organisations,
especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in which
the representatives of the developed countries hold the majority of the votes
on the Boards and are expected to cast them, not in their own immediate
interests, but in the long term interest of the developing countries that
borrow from these institutions?
KEYWORDS:
World Bank, governance, institutional governance, reorganisation, reform, internal organisation.
JEL:
N/A.
Child Workers in Hazardous Industries in Pakistan
Akmal Hussain
Published:July - Dec 1997
This paper is the first systematic attempt at understanding the
nature and extent of hazards faced by child workers in the construction and
related industries, which perhaps are not only growing more rapidly but
have far greater hazards than any other set of occupations in which children
are employed.
KEYWORDS:
Child labour, child worker, education, hazard, Pakistan, working conditions.
JEL:
N/A.
Published:July - Dec 1997
Pakistan experienced the reverberations starting in 1988 of the
changes that swept the Asian emerging markets. To create an investment
friendly environment the GoP adopted liberal economic policies of
deregulation, privatisation, opening of capital markets to foreigners,
liberalisation of foreign exchange regulations and dismantling of investment
control - policies that lead to a significant increase in direct and indirect
foreign investment in the country.
These changes resulted in a drastic increase in the financial assets of
Pakistan with stock market capitalisation rising from Rs.l88 bn in 1991 to
Rs.547 bn at present, daily trading volume improving from 2 mn shares in
1991 to 50 mn shares at present and number of listed companies rising
from 542 in 1991 to 788 at present.
KEYWORDS:
Capital markets, domestic market capitalisation, investment, mutual fund investment, Pakistan.
JEL:
N/A.
Published:July - Dec 1997
In 1995 the Republic of Korea (ROK) was officially admitted to the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This
organisation groups together industrially developed countries of the world.
Recently, the World Bank has also released a study of China that predicts
that China is going to become the second biggest economy in the next
fifteen years if its economic growth follows the pattern of the last fifteen
years. ROK is the only country from among the developing countries to join
the ranks of the developed industrialised countries in the last thirty years.
However, it is still a small country compared to China. Hence when China
completes its transformation into an industrialised country the whole world
will be affected.
How did South Korea achieve such an accelerated transition to
prosperity? What measures were adopted by the Chinese leadership that has
allowed China to grow so rapidly? There are many factors that have been
cited to explain Korea's miracle, and rapid Chinese growth. However, In the
following we will highlight the role that education, science and research and
development (R&D) have played in their success.
KEYWORDS:
South Korea, ROK, GDP, OECD, research and development, R & D, investment.
JEL:
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