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.

The existing literature on education and poverty considers mostly primary data from an income point of view. However, the benefits of education vary from a direct income effect to positive externalities, which can help reduce poverty. This paper uses panel data for 40 developing countries for the period 1999 to 2007, and estimates coefficients by applying the random effect generalized least squares (GLS) technique. The study concludes, first, that income growth plays a moderately positive role in alleviating poverty, but that income distribution does not play a key role in poverty alleviation in the sample overall. Second, it concludes that education is the most significant contributor to poverty alleviation.
KEYWORDS: Education, income, income distribution, poverty alleviation, GLS, Pakistan.

JEL: I32, I30.

Edited by Shahrukh Rafi Khan and Jens Christiansen, Towards New Developmentalism, Market as Means Rather than Master, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York, 2011, ISBN13: 978-0-415-77984-5, pp 286. Neo-liberalism has virtually seen its day and over the last three decades a significant amount of scholarship has evolved that provides a viable alternative to this paradigm. Further, the global financial and economic crisis plaguing countries the world over from 2007-2009 has led to the exploration of alternatives that are presented in this book by scholars.
KEYWORDS: Book review, neo-liberalism, strategy, financial crisis.

JEL: N/A.

This paper is a first attempt to measure and analyze inflation uncertainty in Pakistan. It makes several contributions to the literature. In the first stage, using quarterly data from 1976:01 to 2008:02, we model inflation uncertainty as a time varying process using the GARCH framework. In the second stage, we analyze the asymmetric behavior of inflation uncertainty using the GJR-GARCH and EGARCH models. For further analysis of asymmetry and leverage effects, we develop news impact curves as proposed by Pagan and Schwart (1990). Finally we investigate the causality and its direction between inflation and inflation uncertainty by using the bivariate Granger-Causality test to determine which inflation uncertainty hypothesis (Friedman-Ball or Cukierman-Meltzer) holds true for Pakistani data. We obtain two important results. First, the GJR-GARCH and EGARCH models are more successful in capturing inflation uncertainty and its asymmetric behavior than the simple GARCH model. This can also be seen from news impact curves showing a significant level of asymmetry. Second, there is strong evidence that the Friedman-Ball inflation uncertainty hypothesis holds true for Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Inflation, uncertainty, GJR-GARCH, EGARCH, Friedman-Ball hypothesis, Pakistan.

JEL: E31, C22, E37.

One of the more celebrated propositions found in international trade is the case that trade liberalization is associated with declining prices, so that protectionism is inflationary. In line with this view, Romer (1993) postulates the hypothesis that inflation is lower in small and open economies. The objective of this study is to examine Romer’s hypothesis in Pakistan. For this purpose, we have used multivariate cointegration and a vector error correction model. The study covers the period from 1960 to 2007. The empirical findings under the cointegration test show that there is a significant negative long-run relationship between inflation and trade openness, which confirms the existence of Romer’s hypothesis in Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Trade openness, inflation, cointegration, vector error correction model, Pakistan.

JEL: F41, C22, O53.

The objective of this paper is to assess the conditions for inflation targeting in Pakistan. The recent inflationary surge in Pakistan calls for rethinking monetary policy afresh. This paper argues the case for inflation targeting in Pakistan as a policy option to achieve price stability. The country experienced an inflation rate of just below 10 percent during 1970-2009, which makes it a potential candidate for inflation targeting. Applying the VAR technique to data for the same period, inflation is shown to be adaptive in nature, leading us to reject the accelerationist hypothesis. The Lucas critique holds as people are found to use forward-looking models in forming expectations about inflation. The paper also sheds some light on the State Bank of Pakistan’s level of preparedness for the possibility of adopting inflation targeting, for which transparency and autonomy are prerequisites. The interest rate channel can play the role of a nominal anchor in the long run.
KEYWORDS: Monetary policy, central bank, inflation targeting, Pakistan.

JEL: E31, E52, C32.

Using Theil’s inequality coefficient based on the mean square prediction error, this paper evaluates the forecasting efficiency of the central government budget and revised budget estimates in Pakistan for the period 1987/88 to 2007/08 and decomposes the errors into biasedness, unequal variation and random components to analyze the source of error. The results reveal that budgetary forecasting is inefficient in Pakistan and the error is due mainly to exogenous variables (random factors). We also find that neither the budget nor revised budget estimates of revenue and expenditure satisfy the criteria of rational expectations of forecasting. Further, there is very little evidence of improvement in the efficiency of budgetary forecasts over time.
KEYWORDS: Budget, Forecast errors, Theil’s inequality coefficient, rational expectations, Pakistan.

JEL: C53, E62, H68.

Keynes (1930) proposed that an asset is more liquid than another “if it is more certainly realisable at short notice without loss” (vol. II, p. 67). This definition suggests that the liquidity of an asset is twofold. First, an asset should have a market that can readily absorb the sale, and second, do so without risk to its final value. This suggests that investors should be rewarded for both the level of liquidity and liquidity risk. The standard form of asset pricing models assumes financial markets to be perfectly liquid. In a perfectly liquid market, there are no arbitrage possibilities. Therefore, the under traditional asset pricing approach, all assets that have similar expected cash flows must have the same price. This phenomenon of frictionless markets ignores the impact of liquidity of financial assets on their respective prices and consequently on returns. The relation between liquidity and expected returns has been statistically observed and explains certain market anomalies such as the small firm effect, equity premium, and risk-free rate puzzle.
KEYWORDS: stock returns, Liquidity, frictionless markets.

JEL: N/A.

The liberalization of the agricultural sector in general and the rice subsector in particular has been a major component of Bangladesh’s structural adjustment program initiated in 1992. However, the government has continued to intervene in the rice subsector. This paper examines whether the regional/divisional rice markets have become spatially integrated following the liberalization of the rice market. Wholesale weekly coarse rice prices at six divisional levels over the period of January 2004 to November 2006 were used to test the degree of market integration in Bangladesh using co-integration analysis and a vector error correction model (VECM). The Johansen co-integration test indicated that there are at least three co-integrating vectors implying that rice markets in Bangladesh during the study period are moderately linked together and therefore the long-run equilibrium is stable. The short-run market integration as measured by the magnitude of market interdependence and the speed of price transmission between the divisional markets has been weak.
KEYWORDS: Market liberalization, integration, vector error correction model, rice, price transmission, Bangladesh.

JEL: Q11, D40.

The Sixth Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan Economy was hosted by the Center for Research in Economics and Business (CREB) of the Lahore School of Economics from April 22nd to April 23rd, 2010 and the annual Special Edition of the Lahore Journal of Economics contains the Papers and Proceedings of this conference. The objective of the conference was to promote discussion on economic management and strategic issues facing Pakistan today, because if the country can successfully deal with key challenges, it can make the transition to a middle income country by 2020. These challenges include addressing the recurrent energy crises, overcoming the persistent poor government revenue mobilization effort and bridging the growing regional disparities and lack of trust between the four provinces.
KEYWORDS: Pakistan, Lahore School, Annual Conference, CREB, Sixth, economic management.

JEL: N/A.

This article suggests that Pakistan requires a different development paradigm. The analysis begins by giving a quick overview of some of the larger economies of the region and assesses the divisions that have developed between the people as a result of national strategies. The paper goes on to present a brief history of the previous attempts at decentralization in Pakistan and a discussion of how these were thwarted. This is followed by a discussion of how decentralization can be successful in Pakistan after the 18th Amendment and the 7th NFC Award.
KEYWORDS: Development, policy, decentralization, Pakistan.

JEL: O20, O23, H77.

This paper looks at the issue of federalism in Pakistan. It begins with an analysis of the conceptual paradigms of federalism and goes on to examine the history of federalism in Pakistan. The paper goes on to discuss the reasons for the failure to develop an organic federal covenant as well as discuss how the 7th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award and the 18th Amendment may be indicative of a paradigm shift. The paper concludes by presenting the way forward for federalism in Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Federalism, governance, Pakistan.

JEL: H77, O2.

This paper analyzes Pakistan’s energy sector issues and highlights (i) the importance of the link between energy and the environment, and (ii) the central importance of energy efficiency for high return demand-side solutions to meet the country’s energy needs. The paper argues that energy planning should integrate the external cost of energy use in deciding about the composition of supply: coal, oil, gas, hydropower, renewable, nuclear, and solar. By utilizing external cost estimates made by the European Commission for Europe, and the US National Academy of Sciences, a total cost (external + internal) ranking of primary energy sources for Pakistan is estimated. This estimate is at the low end of the cost spectrum because classic pollutants—sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide—in Pakistan are significantly higher than in Europe or the US. The paper also discusses the experiences of China and OECD countries in increasing energy-wide efficiency. A central lesson emerging from the analysis is that Pakistan will have to significantly increase its energy-related research and development expenditure in order to adequately address its energy sector issues. A quadrupling from 0.25 % of gross domestic product is recommended over a decade.
KEYWORDS: Energy, policy, environment, Pakistan.

JEL: Q48, Q47, Q5.

This paper examines the circular debt problem in the Pakistani energy sector. After presenting the profile of the energy sector in Pakistan, the paper explains why circular debt has emerged in the sector. Two principal reasons are discussed for the circular debt problem: First, consumer tariffs were insufficient to recover the rising costs of power generation and the government (due to fiscal constraints) was not compensating PEPCO for the resulting losses. Second, PEPCO has faced significant problems in recovering dues from consumers. In order to resolve the circular debt problem, sharp adjustments in power tariffs may be required combined with the need by the government to explicitly recognize the costs of power subsidies in the budget.
KEYWORDS: Circular debt, energy, tariff, subsidy, Pakistan.

JEL: Q43, H62, Q48.

This paper looks at the economy-wide demand and the firm level demand for electricity in Pakistan. The economy wide estimation of electricity demand uses panel data from 63 countries from 1998-2008, and finds that the elasticity of demand for electricity with respect to per capita income is approximately 0.69, which implies that a 1% increase in per capita income will lead to a 0.69% increase in the demand for electricity. The firm level analysis uses firm level data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey for Pakistan and finds that the price elasticity of demand for electricity across all firms is approximately -0.57, which implies that a 1% increase in electricity prices will lead to a 0.57% decrease in electricity demand across firms. Across sectors, the textile sector has the highest price elasticity of demand (-0.81) while the price elasticity of demand for firms in the electricity and electronics sector is the smallest (-0.31). Finally, firm level data is also used to estimate production functions in order to estimate the impact of electricity shortages on manufacturing output.
KEYWORDS: Electricity, demand, industrial, price elasticity, Pakistan.

JEL: Q41, E01, E39.

In this paper, we aim to understand residential electricity demand responses to changes in income, in order to assist policymakers in managing demand for electricity and evaluating tariff increases associated with proposed projects for increasing supply, while minimizing the impact on poverty.
KEYWORDS: Electricity, demand, residential, Pakistan.

JEL: Q41, D12, E39.