Pakistan faces economic challenges in the summer of 2011 with regard to its balance of payments and its public finances, resulting primarily from the suspension of an ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) program, the associated cessation of program lending by other multilateral financial institutions, and the termination of the US’s cash logistics support. This paper argues that these challenges can be met without resorting to a new program with the IMF. The policy measures recommended with regard to the balance of payments are: (i) to allow the orderly depreciation of the exchange rate in the foreign exchange interbank market by about 5–15 percent or to PKR90–100/US dollar, (ii) to impose import surcharges of 10–20 percent on nonessential imports, and (iii) to re-impose measures originally imposed to increase the cost of import letters of credit. Public finance-related policy measures recommended on the expenditure side are: (i) to gradually reduce the State Bank of Pakistan’s policy rate by 300 basis points in the fiscal year (FY) 2012 from its present level of 13.5 percent, thereby reducing the interest burden on public debt; and (ii) to utilize these savings to restart the stalled public sector infrastructure development program. These measures will also stimulate economic activity. On tax policy, the paper recommends that: (i) the sales tax rate be increased from its present 16 percent to 18 percent, (ii) custom duties be increased by 10–20 percent on nonessential imports (as also recommended for the balance of payments, and (iii) regulatory and excise duties be increased and their original (FY2011) coverage restored.
KEYWORDS: Economic Policy, Balance of Payments, Public Finance, Pakistan.

JEL: H29, G18.

This paper proposes that the underlying cause of the macroeconomic problems facing Pakistan today are a series of supply shocks which have constrained output growth. It is argued that while the current debate has solely focused on government expenditures and revenues, it is critical to also address the acute energy shortages which is constraining supply. The paper goes on to present four recommendations for breaking out of the present stagflation: (i) prudent macroeconomic management, (ii) reviving the role of the government in development while restoring fiscal balance, (iii) loosening monetary policy in order to spur the private sector, and (iv) improving social safety nets.
KEYWORDS: Economic Growth, Supply Shock, Pakistan.

JEL: F43, P44.

This paper looks at the major factors limiting economic growth in Pakistan. The paper then analyzes the structural problems faced by Pakistan today and goes on to discuss the challenges facing monetary policy makers in Pakistan as well as the problem of budget and trade deficits. The paper concludes with a discussion on the key institutional changes needed in Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Economic Growth, Budget Deficit, Trade Deficit, Pakistan.

JEL: F50, F49.

Compared to the historical and even contemporary experience of India, Pakistan has long been regarded as a “dependent” economy. Gross domestic product growth in Pakistan is typically argued to be contingent on external factors: trade, financial flows, and the interdependence of asset markets. Beyond the rhetoric, there is only ambiguous and contradictory empirical evidence to support this view. This paper offers a new methodology, that of case studies of growth and stagnation, to test the hypothesis of dependency. The results show that growth in Pakistan is influenced by external factors, but that growth is driven primarily by the dynamics of the domestic economy.
KEYWORDS: Economic Growth, Dependency, Crisis, Pakistan.

JEL: O16, F43.

Pakistan embarked on the liberalization of its capital account more than two decades ago. Today, it is an economy with a capital account that is, by and large, free of restrictions, and a convertible currency. However, its actual integration into the global economy in comparison to other emerging market economies has remained rather limited. The opening of a capital account appeared to have improved the country’s access to private foreign capital, but because of domestic security and economic and political concerns, the inflow of private capital has fallen in recent years. Although capital outflows were not a major cause for the decline in foreign exchange reserves during Pakistan’s economic crisis of 2008, the open capital account and rupee convertibility have made it more vulnerable to outside shocks. This article identifies three areas where policymakers in Pakistan face serious challenges, i.e., macroeconomic management; controlling tax evasion, which the Pakistani rupee’s convertibility has made easier; and minimizing the real cost of portfolio investment to the country. The article offers ideas on how these challenges could be met.
KEYWORDS: Capital Account, Covertibilty, Pakistan.

JEL: G11, O16, E22, H26.

This paper discusses how poor debt management combined with the policies of donor agencies (particularly the IMF) have brought on the present domestic and foreign debt crises. The paper presents a qualitative account of the debt in Pakistan and then analyzes the debt data using various debt burden indicators. After the analysis of the economic and social costs of debt overhang in Pakistan, it is found that net foreign resource flows to the private and public sectors tended to crowd out private and public savings respectively and that public savings is crowded out by resource flows from the private sector to the public sector. Finally, the results of the paper find that the resource allocation between development and non‐development expenditure did not depend on whether government expenditure was financed by revenues or government borrowing and that more resources are directed towards development activity when government expenditure is financed by foreign resource flows rather than domestic resource flows.
KEYWORDS: Debt Burden, Savings, Development Expenditure, Pakistan.

JEL: H63, H68.

This article examines how better discipline can be brought to fiscal policy, first, through enhanced institutional checks and balances, and second, through better market discipline. We examine the political institutions and budgetary processes that can affect fiscal policy in Pakistan. A sound fiscal policy feeds bond market development, while the bond market provides signals in relation to the prudent conduct of fiscal policy. A common dimension in this mutual relationship is the governance environment. The article concludes that instilling fiscal discipline will remain intractable unless approached comprehensively. Long-term solutions must be found in the development of political institutions and improved governance. An active and liquid bond market can play a crucial role in bringing about fiscal discipline. The real challenge lies in summoning the political will and raising public awareness to implement the required measures.
KEYWORDS: Budget Deficit, Fiscal Policy, Bond Market, Pakistan.

JEL: E62, H62, H61.

This study estimates the impact of monetary policy on lending and deposit rates in Pakistan, using bank data for the period November 2001 to March 2011. We find evidence of a long-run relationship between the lending and discount rate, but the deposit rate is not co-integrated, and the pass-through is not complete. The study finds that, overall, banks pass on only 20 percent of the impact of a change in the discount rate to lenders in the first month. There is also a significant difference among various banks’ pass-through rates. A shortrun analysis reveals that the pass-through of the deposit rate is low at 0.16, which implies that the effectiveness of monetary policy is limited in Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Monetary Policy, Lending, Deposit Rates, Pakistan.

JEL: E52, E43.

The objective of this study is to estimate a monetary policy reaction function for Pakistan. To do this, we use data for the period 1992Q4–2010Q2. Our results show that the State Bank of Pakistan reacts to changes in the inflation rate and economic activity in a manner that is consistent with the Taylor (1993) rule, and with the explicit objective of interest rate smoothing and exchange rate management. This policy has remained consistent for most of the sample period, except for the last two years, during which a price hike and the massive depreciation of domestic currency led to a significant change in the parameters of the policy reaction function. We also find evidence of nonlinearity in the reaction function as the response to an inflation rate above 6.4 percent is found to be more aggressive than that in low inflationary episodes.
KEYWORDS: Inflation, Monetary Policy, Pakistan.

JEL: E52, P44.

This study presents empirical evidence of market discipline, using a panel dataset of listed banks on the Karachi Stock Exchange. We construct multiple riskbased measures from the stock prices between 2004 and 2009 to determine whether an increase in the risk profile results in an increase in compensation for depositors and other creditors. The risk variables used include market risk, value at risk, size and value premium, default likelihood indicator, price relatives, and a control variable representing gross domestic product growth. We find a significant relationship between our risk factors and cost of deposits, indicating that banks align deposit compensation with their risk perception. However, we cannot find a link between the market perception of risk and deposit switching. These findings have important implications for policymakers as market discipline could complement the state’s regulatory role and lower the cost of supervision. Our estimations of value at risk and the default likelihood indicator using stochastic simulations is a methodological contribution that could be used for effective risk management practices.
KEYWORDS: Market Discipline, Karachi Stock Exchange, Value at Risk, Default Likelihood Indicator.

JEL: G21, G20.

This article examines the determinants of banks’ interest margins. The results suggest that short-term government bonds (floating debt) and the large share of interest-insensitive deposits held by banks are the key determinants of the interest margin. This is in contrast to the popular perception that the market power of the oligopolistic industry contributes to banks’ high interest margins. While a behavioral change—a greater inclination to save and an increase in output—might reduce the share of interest-insensitive deposits, the reduction in government debt depends on the state of certain macro-variables and macroeconomic management. Given these determinants and the possible ways of containing margins, the containment process is a tall order. The study also implicitly confirms that government borrowing is crowding out private investment.
KEYWORDS: Interest Margin, Banks, Pakistan.

JEL: G12, G21.

This study attempts to investigate the impact of changes in bank governance on bank performance in Pakistan. Governance changes entail the privatization and restructuring of state-owned banks, and the merger and acquisition of private and foreign banks. Using the concept of frontier efficiency, we adopt an empirical framework that allows us to study the impact of all governance reform variables in the same model. First, we estimate a stochastic cost frontier model using unbalanced panel data on commercial banks for the period 1991–2005. Second, we decompose banks’ total factor productivity (TFP) change into its different components, using the estimated frontier. In general, the results show an improvement in banks’ cost efficiency following changes in bank governance. We note that governance changes bring about an improvement in banks’ TFP vis-à-vis that of banks that did not undergo governance changes. We find a declining trend in TFP change (TFPC), which could be a consequence of the banking industry’s increased profitability. We also note that bank selection for governance changes has a mixed effect on TFPC, while bank consolidation seems to be more effective in improving TFPC.
KEYWORDS: Bank Reform, Total Factor Productivity, Stochastic Frontier Model, Pakistan.

JEL: D24, M31, J54.

This article examines the performance of Pakistan’s mutual fund industry during 2006–10, a period characterized both by bullish and bearish markets. An analysis of fund types reveals that Islamic funds have shown strong growth in spite of their lackluster performance compared to conventional funds. Income funds appear to have suffered as a consequence of the underdeveloped bond market, and very high t-bill rates have resulted in negative excess returns during the period. For stock funds, market indices and size are significant factors that indicate a preference for large-cap stocks of managers. With consistently negative or insignificant alphas, no fund manages to outperform the market.
KEYWORDS: Mutual Funds, Fund Performance, Pakistan.

JEL: G11, G23.

This study has a twofold objective: (i) to investigate the determinants of firm growth, specifically the extent to which finance constrains enterprise growth; and (ii) to explore the determinants of external financial access in Pakistan. External financial access is defined as access to credit through institutional sources such as private commercial banks, nonbank financial institutions, and state-owned banks and agencies. The study uses data from the second round of the Investment Climate Assessment Survey conducted by the World Bank in FY 2007. The methodology entails using an instrumental variable approach to estimate the impact of external financial access on firm growth while employing a probit model to explore the determinants of external financial access. The results suggest the following: First, finance is a binding constraint to firm growth in Pakistan—a 10 percent increase in the working capital financed through external sources is predicted to increase the average annual growth rate by 5.6 percentage points. Second, financial depth is important for access—across the country, access is better where there is greater penetration of financial infrastructure. Third, a range of internal factors such as size, export status, quality of human capital, and organizational form emerge as important determinants of external financial access in Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Financial Access, Firms, Financial Depth, Pakistan.

JEL: C36, 043.

A rich area of economic research focuses on the role of controlled experiments to understand interactions between agents and agents’ own deepseeded preferences as they pertain to pro-social behavior. Four of the most common games—the prisoner’s dilemma, and the trust, ultimatum, and dictator games—have been used both in laboratory and field settings, and with student and nonstudent participants. Cardenas and Carpenter (2008) have compiled evidence for these four games that has been collected from behavioral experiments conducted in the US and a number of developing countries. In this paper, we wish to add to the existing evidence by presenting the results of lab experiments carried out on a population of economics students at a university in Lahore.
KEYWORDS: Behavioral Environment, Games, Lahore, Pakistan.

JEL: C73, C93.

Given that clustered firms in developing countries generally sell their goods through multinational firms, we seek to determine under what conditions might clustered surgical instrument firms band together and form a cooperative to “break out” of their relationship with multinational buyers to market their own goods. Our results, based on a survey of surgical instrument producers in Sialkot, Pakistan, demonstrate that firms are more likely to be interested in such initiatives once they have already had some direct experience in marketing, such as selling products under their own brand name and having already sold some goods directly to hospitals. Firms that have had relationships of longer duration with customers tend to be less likely to be interested in joint action initiatives. This indicates that a higher opportunity cost of engaging in joint action (as proxied by relationships of longer duration) reduces the likelihood of cooperative marketing initiatives in clusters.
KEYWORDS: Surgical instruments, goods, cooperative, market, Pakistan.

JEL: D24, M31, J54.

This paper attempts to estimate Pakistan’s trade potential, using the gravity model of trade. Panel data for the period 1981-2005 across 42 countries is employed in the analysis. The coefficients obtained from the model are then used to predict the country’s trade potential worldwide as well as within specific trading regions. The results reveal that Pakistan’s trade potential is highest with countries in the Asia-Pacific region (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN]), the European Union (EU), the Middle East, Latin America, and North America. Specifically, the maximum potential exists with Japan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Italy, and Denmark. Therefore, Pakistan should explore ways and means to further improve its trade relations with the countries concerned, and also concentrate on ASEAN, the Middle East, and the EU to increase its market share as far as possible. The volume of trade between Pakistan and other members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is very low, despite the existence of significant potential. The main obstacles to this end are the political and social tensions among neighboring countries, particularly between Pakistan and India, which are the main players of SAARC. The same obstacles exist in the case of the EU and NAFTA, where Pakistani exports are adversely affected by political considerations.
KEYWORDS: Trade potential, gravity model, Pakistan.

JEL: O16, F19.

This study uses data from 1999/2000 to 2004/05 to determine the relative efficiency of major crops (wheat, rice, sugarcane, and cotton) in Punjab (Pakistan) and their comparative advantage in international trade as measured by economic profitability and the domestic resource cost (DRC) ratio. An economic profitability analysis demonstrates that Punjab has a comparative advantage in the domestic production of wheat for self-sufficiency but not for export purposes. In basmati production, Punjab has a comparative advantage, and increasing Basmati production for export is a viable economic proposition. The nominal protection coefficient (NPC), effective protection coefficient (EPC), and DRC for Irri rice are more than 1: the given input-output relationship and export prices do not give Punjab a comparative advantage in production of Irri for export. Sugarcane growers did not receive economic prices (i.e. prices reflecting true opportunity costs) during 2001/02 and 2002/03 in an importing scenario, while in 2003/04, the NPC was 1.02, indicating positive support to sugarcane growers. The NPCs estimated under an exporting situation range from 1.33 to 1.99, indicating that the prices received by growers are higher than the export parity/economic prices. This is also an indication that sugarcane cultivation for exporting sugar is not feasible in terms of economic value. The NPCs for cotton under an importing scenario were less than 1 while under an exporting scenario were either close to or greater than 1, implying an expansion in cotton production as imports have been more expensive than domestic production.
KEYWORDS: Crops, comparative advantage, domestic resource cost, policy analysis matrix (PAM), Pakistan.

JEL: Q18, Q17.

This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of monetary and macroeconomic factors on real wheat prices in Pakistan for the period 1976-2010, using Johansen’s co-integration approach. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller test reveals that all the variables used are first-difference stationary, except the trade openness indicator, which is second-difference stationary. There is also a long-run equilibrium relationship among these variables. The results indicate that real money supply, openness of the economy, and the real exchange rate have a significant effect on real wheat prices in the long run. The impulse response function shows that a trade openness shock impacted wheat prices to some extent and that it took three to four years for prices to become stable, following the shock. The findings of the study suggest that the policy thrust should focus on increasing wheat supply in the country by enhancing production or by liberalizing trade. Efforts should also be directed toward stabilizing the value of the Pakistani rupee against foreign currencies, especially the US dollar.
KEYWORDS: Wheat prices, co-integration, Pakistan.

JEL: E31, E00.

This paper deals with the computation and analysis of some fundamental reserve aggregates and associated monetary statistics, which impart important information regarding the design and conduct of monetary policy at the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Specifically, we compute the data series for borrowed, unborrowed, free, and drainable reserves using balance sheet data published by the SBP for the period 1985-2009. Results show that Pakistan’s monetary policy revolves around managing the exchange rate while using the t-bill rate as a key policy instrument. However, the value of the t-bill rate is both incorrectly and sub-optimally related to macroeconomic fundamentals rendering monetary policy time inconsistent. This hinges on the finding that, since 2000/01, the SBP has targeted the net free reserves of the banking system at 4 percent of total private deposits. Among other observations, we find that the scope of open market operations as a tool of monetary policy remains limited and that this limited role of open market defenses derives from the concern of the central bank to sterilize its own foreign exchange reserves. Furthermore, the growth rate of unborrowed plus drainable reserves bears a strong negative correlation with the annual average rate of inflation, which, on account of the former being consistently negative since 2005, implies that neither the government nor the SBP have an overriding concern for controlling inflation.
KEYWORDS: Monetary policy, central banks, Taylor rule, monetary targets, Pakistan.

JEL: E52, E58, E51.