Masood Sarwar Awan

Financial Development, International Trade and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

The study utilizes the Autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) approach for cointegration and Granger causality test, to explore the long run equilibrium relationship and the possible direction of causality between international trade, financial development and economic growth for the Pakistan economy. Imports plus exports of goods and services is used as a proxy for international trade, while broad money (M2) and gross domestic product (GDP) are used as the proxies for financial development and economic growth, respectively. Result explores a long run relationship between the variables. In case of Pakistan, economy supply leading hypothesis is accepted. Moreover, unidirectional causality is observed from international trade to economic growth and from financial development to international trade.

Social Protection, Gender, and Poverty: Application of Social Protection Index

ABSTRACT Literature on social protection, inequality, and poverty suggest that social protection programs are the policy tool for the eradication of poverty and inequality. The exact targeting of beneficiaries is the most important pillar behind the success of every social protection schemes. Asian Development Bank introduced Revised Social Protection Index in 2010, which is used by several studies for the evaluation of social protection schemes. The current study estimates the revised social protection index of Pakistan for the years 2011 and 2013. During 2011, the average per capita expenditure on social protection was 5.1% of the poverty line expenditure, whereas during 2013, average per capita expenditure on social protection was 5.3% of the poverty line expenditure. The disaggregated form of social protection index indicates that the coverage of social protection programs are low in Pakistan. The expenditures on social protection programs are high for the non-poor and very low for poor. The gender-based disaggregated form of social protection index shows that women have a lower value of social protection index than do males.

Access to better health? The impact of the Benazir Income Support Programme in Pakistan

The multi-dimensional impact of social protection programmes can make them an effective instrument in the alleviation of poverty and vulnerability by enhancing the health, education and social well-being of target groups. In recognition of their importance, this note addresses the health-related impact of Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme, based on interviews with 1,000 beneficiaries in Punjab province. Not surprisingly, the findings, among others, are that an increase in the family size of beneficiaries has a negative impact on attaining better health; that the probability of better health increases if beneficiaries are engaged in some form of employment; and that the probability of better health is higher for urban beneficiaries than it is for rural beneficiaries. Such findings raise significant questions about the capacity of the programme to meet desired objectives and goals.

Cluster Based Industrialization and its Effect on Firm Productivity in Pakistan

This paper examines the effect of externalities associated with agglomeration on firm level productivity in Pakistan. We begin our analysis by calculating six measures of agglomeration which give us the pattern of spatial concentration across the country. To calculate these six measures we use data at the country level and for Punjab between 1988-89 and 2005-06. The data is derived from the Census of Establishments for 1988-89, and the Census of Manufacturing Industries for the years 1995-96, 2000-01 and 2005-06. Our agglomeration measures show that although 59.5% of the industries in the country are highly agglomerated, the results are varied, with no one industry consistently emerging as a concentrated industry in either the country or in Punjab for the several years examined. Similarly, patterns of regional specialization tend to vary considerably over the length of time under examination with areas identified as specialized in the first round of data not ranking as most specialized in the next wave. Finally, the data shows that localization economies are typically stronger than urbanization economies in the Pakistani context, indicating that firms tend to benefit from intra industry externalities rather than inter industry externalities. Our analysis also considers development indicators which may be affecting the firm location decision. Specifically, we examine human capital development, crime, road density, and agricultural output. Overall, we find that human capital development is fairly low in the country, with large urban districts such as Karachi staying at the top of the ranking regardless of the year examined, and lower ranked districts failing to catch up. At the same time, crime in these urban districts remains high while road density is high in most of the large urban districts, with the exception of Karachi district, whose lower rank may be explained by its large size, and by considering that district includes less developed surrounding areas around Karachi city proper. Finally, districts in the agricultural heartland of the country, namely Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur remain the highest in terms of agricultural produce, with Karachi and Karak ranked among the lowest. Having established the patterns of agglomeration and development across the country we next examine the impact of these location and industry concentration indexes on productivity in manufacturing firms through a plant level production function across all districts of Pakistan, while also identifying the impact of firm inputs such as capital and labor. Our regression specification includes controls for connectivity through a road density variable, human capital levels through an education index, and working environment through crime statistics. Our results indicate a strong role for agglomeration economies and the associated externalities in firm output over a long time horizon, and a significant role for development indicators like road density and human capital over a shorter time frame.