Shaista Alam

The dynamics of fertility, family planning and female education in Pakistan

Abstract The present study analyses the dynamics of fertility and its determinants in a country at very low levels of socio-economic development. It binds the relationship between fertility and its determinants with a particular focus on planned family planning within a multivariate cointegrated Granger-casual framework. The methodology employed uses various unit root test and Johansen’s cointegration test followed by vector error-correction model, and variance decompositions in order to capture both within-sample and out-of-sample Granger causality between fertility and its determinants. The findings appeared to be consistent with recent theoretical statements that maintain that although in the long-run the sufficient condition of fertility decline may be the result of a complex dynamic interaction with planned family planning and significant socio-economic structural changes. While in the short-run the necessary condition of fertility decline may not need that significant structural change, but may require a client-oriented affordable but persuasive ‘planned’ family-planning programme, coupled with few years of schooling, particularly female, firmly supported by the political and social elite at all levels of that society, and also adapted to the socio-cultural realities of the vast masses of the people of that country.

A Reassessment of Pakistan's Aggregate Import Demand Function: An Application of Ardl Approach

The present study re-estimated the import demand function for Pakistan on the basis of quarterly time series data by employing autoregressive distributed lag approach. The present study draws various significant conclusions from the estimation of aggregate merchandized import demand function. The results support the proposition that in Pakistan there exist a long-run relationship among, import demand, real economic growth, real effective exchange rate and real effective exchange rate volatility. It further found that aggregate import demand is income and price inelastic, implying that Pakistans imports comprises essential goods. The study found evidence to suggest that real effective exchange rate volatility has adverse effect on import demand for Pakistan in long-run.

Is there any causality between human resource development and economic growth? A provincial case study on Pakistan

The present study aims to investigate the causality between economic growth and human resource development. In doing so, LLL (Larsson et al., 2001) panel co-integration rank test for heterogeneous panel models and recently developed panel causality tests by Hurlin and Venet (2001) are employed on panel of four provinces. The results of panel rank tests indicate that there exists a long run relationship between human resource development and economic growth in Pakistan. The results based on panel homogeneous causality hypothesis show that economic growth does not cause human resource development, while human resource development causes economic growth. However, panel non-homogeneous hypothesis suggest that there exist bi-directional causality relationship between human resource development and economic growth in Pakistan. The empirical evidence of heterogeneous causality hypothesis confirms the existence of bi-directional casual relationship between human resource development and economic growth in Punjab, while human resource development causes economic activity in Sind.

Exchange Rate Volatility and Pakistan’s Exports to Major Markets: A Sectoral Analysis:

The present study investigated the impact of exchange rate volatility on Pakistan’s bilateral sectoral exports with its major trading partners, that is, USA, UK, Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia. We have employed the multivariate co-integration test and found the presence of a long-run relationship amid the variables. The empirical evidence indicates that exchange rate volatility has consistent and favourable effect on sectoral exports of Pakistan in most of the cases. These sectoral exports’ results are considerably different from the results of aggregate and bilateral exports as the long-run elasticities for exchange rate volatility, regarding sectoral exports across countries, are all greater in magnitude as compared to aggregate and bilateral elasticities of exchange rate volatility, and some signs are also opposite (Alam & Ahmed, 2012). This concludes that the aggregate and bilateral aggregate exports data may weaken the effects of exchange rate volatility to statistically insignificant or less significant, and that the effect of exchange rate volatility may probably be more responsive to the nature of industry producing exportable goods.

Globalisation, economic growth and energy consumption in the BRICS region: The importance of asymmetries

ABSTRACT This paper examines the asymmetric impact of globalisation and economic growth on energy consumption in BRICS countries, applying the NARDL bounds approach to explore the presence of asymmetric cointegration across variables. The empirical results reveal that energy consumption is positively and negatively affected by the positive and negative globalisation shocks, respectively. A positive shock in economic growth promotes energy consumption, while a negative shock reduces energy consumption.

The trade integration and Pakistan’s export performance: Evidence from exporter dynamic database

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of trade integration on Pakistan’s export performance (value of exports, number of exporters and number of products per exporter) during 2003 to 2010. Design/methodology/approach - Data from the World Bank Exporters Dynamics Database are analysed using fixed effect panel data techniques. Findings - The results suggest that trade integration with South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), China and Iran play remarkable role in improving export value by 73, 29 and 55 per cent, respectively. It is found that on average more than 140 and 339 exporters increase after integration with SAFTA and China, respectively, and during the study period, 1,605 and 606 exporters entered into SAFTA and Chinese market, respectively. Moreover, 182 and 146 additional exporters entered in Malaysian and Iranian export market after integration, which is 19 and 98 per cent, respectively, of initial year’s number of exporters. In addition, Malaysia and Mauritius show positive and considerable effect on diversification of product variety. Originality/value - This is an original empirical research. The contributions of the paper are many fold: this paper is first to analyse the effect of Pakistan’s trade integration established during 2000s decade; pioneer contribution of this study is to use the number of exporters and number of products, as well as the value of exports to measure the export performance of Pakistan; and this study uses positive and negative discrepancies in export value data, number of HS6 products exported as a proxy of product diversification, share of industrial exports in total exports and share of textile exports in industrial exports.

The Effect of Exchange Rate Volatility on Pakistan’s Bilateral Exports to Major Recipients

The dynamic relationship between bilateral exports demand for Pakistan and exchange rate volatility as well as some selected explanatory variables with six major trading partners’ countries, namely, USA, UK, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany and UAE, has been examined during 1982Q1 to 2013Q2. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing approach suggests a stable long-run relationship among selected explanatory variables over the sample period from Pakistan’s bilateral exports to each of its chosen trading partner except Japan. The result suggests that exchange rate volatility adversely affects the demand for Pakistani exports to USA but it positively affects demand for Pakistani exports to Germany in the long run. The short-run causality analysis of ARDL demonstrates that exchange rate volatility causes demand for Pakistani exports in USA and UK adversely, while in case of Germany it causes positively. For Saudi Arabia and UAE, real effective exchange rate volatility does not affect demand for Pakistani exports in the short run as well as in the long run. The study concludes that different export elasticities for different export recipient countries derived in the present study suggest that a single trade policy will not provide a solution to improve country’s external trade sector.

Gender Equality in Education: Case of MajorUrbanizing Areas of Pakistan

The main purpose of this study is to estimate the effect of gender equality in education and explore its determinants in 14 major cities of Pakistan (rapidly urbanizing) after taking into account the socio-economic indicators (like mother education, household income, household living conditions, etc.). Data is gathered from Pakistan Social Standard Living Measurement Survey (PSLM) from 2004-05 to 2012-13. Pseudo Panel technique is applied using cities and females in age group 15-65 as cohorts. Fixed effect technique is used for analyzing the issue. The results of this study indicates that mother’s education, education of the male head of the household, facilities available in the house and income of the household have considerably favorable impact on the education attainment of females.

Trade Openness, Size of Economy and the Saving–Investment Relationship: A Dynamic Analysis for Pakistan

The main objective of this study is to examine the saving–investment relationship with the size of economy and trade openness in Pakistan during the period 1960–2011. For this purpose, the study employed vector auto-regression (VAR) to check simultaneity among trade openness, economic growth and saving–investment. Findings of the study confirm a significant positive relationship among trade openness, economic growth, saving and investment of Pakistan in the long run, but these do not establish a significant short-run relationship among trade openness, economic growth, savings and investment. In light of empirical results, the present study suggests that external sector development should be given due importance. For this purpose, the availability of credit should be enhanced properly. This will not only increase the saving rate in the country but also enhance domestic investment. JEL Classification: A11, B12, C13, D14