Trade, Growth and Povety: A Case of Pakistan

It is generally argued that open trade is crucial for economic growth and development. The economic literature also argues that growth is an important option for reducing poverty in developing countries. The paper analyzed the causality between the trade, growth and poverty for Pakistan using annual time series data from 1973-2009. Granger causality results based on Error-Correction Models have shown that in the case of Pakistan there exists two way relationship between trade and growth in the long-run but for the short-run growth enhance the trade. For the growth and poverty, there exists long-run relation from growth to poverty while for the short-run there exists no relationship. It may be concluded that international trade can play an important role towards growth and ultimately alleviation of poverty. From the policy perspective government should focus on trade.F14; F41; O19; I3.

Export potential of cottage industry: a case study of Sialkot (Pakistan)

Sialkot, the export city of Pakistan is earning $900 million per annum by exports. The major exports are the sports goods, surgical instruments, leather products, martial art instruments, musical instruments and sports wear. All these products are value-added by cottage industry. How the export potential of cottage industry in Sialkot may be increased,that is the question. The current paper estimated the export potential of the cottage industry by measuring it through Cobb-Douglas production function. The data has been collected from 354 cottage industrial units selected by random sampling. The results explain that labor, capital, experience and education of entrepreneur, and working conditions enhance the export potential of the units. The labor is more used in cottage industrial units as compared to capital so the elasticity of export production with respect to labor is higher as compared to capital. The football making units and other sports goods producing units use a minor ratio of capital and largely depend upon labor for production. Although leather and surgical producing units use higher ratio of capital in production. The education and experience of the entrepreneur also lead to increased export production. The better working condition increases the export production by raising the productivity of labor. The study proposes the education and training of the individuals involved in cottage industry and provision of good working conditions by the Export Promotion Bureau, Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry and vocational training institutes in their respective areas. The surprising results of the study are that credit availed by the units decrease the export production while distance to market from the unit raises the export production. The relationship between credit and export production explains the misutilization of credit while positive association between distance to market and export production explains the involvement of more number of household members in production in the units away from city as compared to the units situated near to market or city. The misutilization of loaning is needed to be checked.Cottage industry, Pakistan, Exports, Cobb-Douglas production function, Sialkot

Economically Active Children and Home-care Children: How Much They Differ

Over the issue of the difference or otherwise between economically active children and home-care children, there are two competing claims by researchers. One holds that economically active children and home- care children are the same in that both groups of children have identical determinants, while the other contradicts this view. Using the probit analysis for both groups of children in Pakistan, our study compares the determinants of the two groups to check whether they have same determining factors and ultimately are the same or they differ with each other in this matter. It is found that a significant number of explanatory variables have shown opposite effect on economic activity of children and home-care activity of children. So it is concluded that economically active children and home-care children are two different groups which cannot be merged into each other. However, policies focused on elimination of economically active children trickle down the effect to home-care children as some determining factors of both groups are the same.Child labor, Human Capital, Children, Pakistan

Impact of Supply of Money on Food and General Price Indices: A Case of Pakistan

The paper probed the impact of supply of money on food and general price indices by estimating a series of equations taking CPI food, CPI general, WPI food, WPI general, GDP deflator and SPI as measures of inflation and M1, M2 and M3 supply of money as explanatory variables. For analysis, OLS technique is used covering time series data for the years 1975-76 to 2006-07 that was made stationary by Durbin-Watson criterion. AR (1) is used to check autocorrelation. The results for CPI food, CPI general, WPI general, GDP deflator and SPI show that they are negatively related with M1 supply of money. CPI food, CPI general, WPI general, GDP deflator, and SPI are also negatively related with M2 supply of money. The results show that CPI food, CPI general, WPI general, GDP deflator and SPI are positively related with M3 supply of money. It may be concluded that supply of money M1 and M2 affects the food and general indices in the same way. However, M1 supply of money affects the CPI general strongly than CPI food.Inflation, Money supply, Consumer Price Index, Food prices, Sensitive Price Indicator.

Legislation for child labor and compulsory schooling in Pakistan: some issues

The lack of proper legislation about child labor and compulsory schooling, and its enforcement sustains child labor and a bulk of out of school children in Pakistan. This is manifested in different ways. In this paper we have discussed the issues of legislation and its implementation. Since child labor legislation do not cover informal sector, it is further hampered by the collusion of parents with employers in violating the law. There are also inconsistencies in legislation, which may pose problems. For example, there is no uniform definition of child labor in different Acts of legislation, and the penalties for offenders are generally too light to have a deterrent effect. Statutory provisions clearly defining the nature of work do not accompany a legal ban on child labor. Moreover child legislation is not done according to the ratifications of international conventions.child welfair,national legislation pakistan,child labour

Children in Different Activities: Child Schooling and Child Labour

Using primary data from two districts of Pakistan, this article analyses the supplyside determinants of child labour. The study finds that the birth-order of the child has a significant association with schooling and labour decision of child: first school enrolment of children is delayed; there exists gender disparity in favour of male children; the children from female-headed households are more likely to go to school; the education of the head of household has a positive impact on child’s schooling; among the parent’s parameters mother’s education is more important than father’s; parental education is positively associated with child schooling and negatively associated with child labour. The ownership of assets impacts the schooling positively, and labour negatively; the household size affects the schooling negatively, and work positively; and household composition also has a significant effect on schooling and child labour. The children from urban areas are more likely to go to school

Financial Liberalization And Demand For Money: A Case of Pakistan

Literature in economics has identified many channels through which the financial liberalization may affect demand for money. There are evidences of stability as well as instability of demand for money due to financial development for developing economies. The objective of the current study is to examine the effect of financial liberalization on demand for money in Pakistan, i.e. whether financial liberalization has affected the demand for money or not. The issue is important as stable demand for money function is a prerequisite for formulating and operating monetary policy. To achieve the objective JJ cointegration and auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) to the cointegration is employed to estimate the long-run equilibrium relationship between broad money M2 and composite financial liberalization index along with other determinants of demand for money like gross domestic product, real deposit rate and exchange rate. In order to assess the stability of the model, the parameter constancy tests, i.e. recursive residuals, CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests have been applied. The empirical results indicated that for broad money, there exists long-run money demand function. The financial liberalization, gross domestic product and real deposit rate positively affect the demand for money in the long as well as short-run.Demand for money, Financial liberalization, Real deposit rate, Financial reforms, Pakistan, ARDL

Urban Informal Sector: How Much Women Are Struggling for Family Survival

The paper analyses the contribution of informally employed women (for the age group of 16-60 years) to their household budget. The urban informal sector largely absorbs women workers. We examine the determinants of their contribution to their household budgets for the survival of the families. Applying the OLS model to 937 observations, it is found that women as heads of household, women’s education, and ownership of assets by woman have a positive effect on their contribution. The burden of the large family size, household poverty, and loans availed by the household are shared by the informally employed women, as these variables positively affect their contribution. Age of the woman has a non-linear effect on woman’s contribution. The contribution first increases and then decreases by an increase in the age of the woman. Married women and women living in nuclear families contribute more to the household budget. The household per capita income and number of children (5-15 years) in the household have shown a negative effect on the contribution of women to the household budget. The household’s economic vulnerability due to unemployment of husband and lower productivity caused by lower education of husband are also largely shared by the urban informally employed women, i.e., they struggle more for family survival. However, the number of adult males in the household decreases the volume of contribution by women and the burden on women is relaxed

Gender Analysis of Children’s Activities in Pakistan

This paper estimates gender differences in children’s time allocation among four ordered options. It analyses the sample of boys and girls separately through a series of probit models using primary data. We compare the socio-economic determinants of boys’ and girls’ activities. The results suggest that boys are more likely to go to school as compared to girls with the increase in their age. The provision of schooling as an instrument to decrease child labour and home-care would affect boys more than girls. To make the adults literate (five years of education) only is not enough to eliminate the gender gap in schooling; a greater number of years of adult education is necessary. The female adult education may be devised to eliminate gender discrimination in child schooling. In the larger households, girls drop out of school and are absorbed in the labour market earlier than boys. The results further suggested that the use of resources is significantly different for boys’ and girls’ welfare. Thus, we conclude that girls can be a better target for increase in the welfare of all children in Pakistan