Barriers against Agricultural Exports from Pakistan: The Role of WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement

There has been growing recognition that Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement can impede trade in agricultural and food products. Pakistan, in particular experiences problems in meeting the SPS requirements of developed countries and, it is claimed, this can seriously impede its ability to export agricultural and food products. Attempts have been made to reduce the trade distortive effects of SPS measures through, for example, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) SPS Agreement, although it is claimed that current initiatives fail to address many of the key problems experienced by Pakistan and other developing countries. The present paper explores implications of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement on exports of agricultural and food products from Pakistan. It identifies the problems that Pakistan faces in meeting SPS requirements and how these relate to the nature of SPS measures and the compliance resources available to Government of Pakistan and the supply chain. The paper examines the impact of SPS agreement on the extent to which SPS measures impede exports from Pakistan. It identifies the problems that limit participation of Pakistan in the SPS agreement and its concerns about the way in which it currently operates. The paper is organised into seven sections. In Section II salient features of the SPS agreement are highlighted. Section III delineates key issues arising from the implementation of SPS measures. Section IV summarises factors determining limits to effective participation of Pakistan and other developing countries in the SPS agreement. Section V outlines main concerns of Pakistan to the adoption and implementation of SPS measures. Section VI presents brief note on wider implications of SPS agreement for Pakistan. And finally Section VII summarises main conclusions and outlines policy measures

Volatility of Exchange Rate and Export Growth in Pakistan: The Structure and Interdependence in Regional Markets

The study empirically investigates the effect of exchange rate volatility on exports growth between Pakistan and leading trade partners. The countries are selected to determine the bilateral relationship between Pakistan and the other countries under various regional economic blocks such as SAARC, ASEAN, European, and Asia-Pacific regions. Cointegration and Error Correction techniques are used to establish the empirical relationship between exchange rate volatility and exports growth, using quarterly data from 1991:3 to 2004:2. The results indicate that the volatility of exchange rate has negative and significant effects both in the long run and short run with major trade partners, namely, UK and US. A similar pattern was observed in case of Australia, Bangladesh, and Singapore, where the volume of trade with Pakistan is comparatively consistent and less volatile. The relationship between exports growth and exchange rate volatility for India and Pakistan is observed only in the long-run perspective. However, of countries like New Zealand and Malaysia, no empirical relationship is observed between export growth and exchange rate volatility.Export, Exchange Rate, Pakistan

Cloud Computing in the Quantum Era

Cloud computing has become the prominent technology of this era. Its elasticity, dynamicity, availability, heterogeneity, and pay as you go pricing model has attracted several companies to migrate their businesses' services into the cloud. This gives them more time to focus solely on their businesses and reduces the management and backup overhead leveraging the flexibility of cloud computing. On the other hand, quantum technology is developing very rapidly. Experts are expecting to get an efficient quantum computer within the next decade. This has a significant impact on several sciences including cryptography, medical research, and other fields. This paper analyses the reciprocal impact of quantum technology on cloud computing and vice versa

Testing Semi-strong Form Efficiency of Stock Market

The efficient market hypothesis suggests that stock markets are “informationally efficient”. That is, any new information relevant to the market is spontaneously reflected in the stock prices. A consequence of this hypothesis is that past prices cannot have any predictive power for future prices once the current prices have been used as an explanatory variable. In other words the change in future prices depends only on arrival of new information that was unpredictable today hence it is based on surprise information. Another consequence of this hypothesis is that arbitrage opportunities are wiped out instantaneously. Empirical tests of the efficient market hypothesis actually test for these consequences in various ways. Some of them have been summarised in earlier chapters. These tests generally could not conclusively accept the random-walk hypothesis of stock returns even when GARCH effects were accounted for. Many studies have found empirical regularities that are contrary to the efficient market hypothesis. For example, the monthly, weekly and daily returns on stocks tend to exhibit discernable patterns, such as seasonal affects, month of the year affect, day of the week affect, hourly affect etc. In case of Pakistan’s stock markets too such affects are identified. Such as the Ramadan affect [see Hussain and Uppal (1999)], seasonal effects and day of the week affect. Further, the wide spread use of “technical analysis” among stock traders and their ability to predict to some extent the direction of movements in the prices of individual stocks over medium term testifies to the existence of patterns and seasonal trends.

Cooperatives and Development: Lessons from the Punjab Experience

Traditionally, cooperatives have been expected to serve a broad set of sociopolitical and economic objectives ranging from self-help and grass-root participation to welfare and distribution, including economies of scale and social control over resource allocation and mobilisation. However, these various objectives are not mutually consistent. There exists substantial trade-off in the realisation of many of these goals. It is therefore necessary to weigh their relative importance in the felt needs and priorities of a particular community at any given point of time if performance of cooperatives is to be evaluated in an appropriate context. An attempt to fulfil a range of these conflicting objectives simultaneously has eventually led to a broad based disenchantment with the cooperative movement. This paper highlights two sets of issues with respect to cooperative development. First, it discusses the concept of cooperation and illustrates that the contradictions in the ideology and practice are more significant in explaining the limitations of cooperatives to serve as an instrument of development. Second, the paper points out that in the absence of various external and internal prerequisites, especially due to the lack of their recognition, cooperatives tend to be inefficient relative to other forms of traditional institutions even after receiving subsidies and other types of assistance, thus neither achieving efficiency nor development. By analysing the area of agricultural credit, in which cooperatives have traditionally been most active in the Punjab, this paper illustrates various dilemmas and contradictions and the preconditions necessary for credit cooperatives to reach the rural poor effectively. Finally, the paper points out the implications of the past experience for the future role of cooperatives in Punjab.

The Institution of Cooperation, Credit and the Process of Development in the Indian and Pakistan Punjabs

The Thesis is primarily an assessment of the performance of agricultural credit cooperatives in the Punjab, before and after its partition in 1947. The intrinsic principles of cooperation are traced to their European origin and examined critically. The manner in which the institution of cooperation was transferred to the United Punjab in the early twentieth century as an instrument of government social and economic policy is documented. The evolution of government sponsorship of cooperative credit provision as an instrument of development is traced in the Indian and Pakistan Punjabs with particular reference to a representative area of the Pakistan Punjab

National Finance Commission Awards in Pakistan : A Historical Perspective

This study explores the evolution of fiscal resource distribution in Pakistan. Pakistan is a federation comprising four provinces, federallyadministered areas, and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Being a central type of government, most of the revenues are collected by the centre and then redistributed vertically between the federal and the provincial governments, and horizontally among the provinces. Provinces then also redistribute revenues among lower tiers of the government, through a revenue-sharing formula. A thorough look at the history indicates that this process has been complex and has a far-reaching impact. A less systematic approach has been adopted to decentralise the financial matters. Over time, the divisible pool has expanded due to heavy reliance on indirect taxes as well as improvement in the collection. Population is the sole distribution criteria, adopted in all NFC awards from the divisible pool. This has raised friction among the provinces, necessitating inclusion of other potential variables evolved from international best practices. In addition to that, absence of technical experts and permanency of the NFC is another impediment. The NFC is supposed to provide the framework for amicable distribution of resources between the federal and the provincial governments for the joint goal of development and prosperity.NFC, Pakistan, fiscal federalism, Rule and Discretion, political economy, Population, Subventions, Doing the Business of Government

National Finance Commission Awards in Pakistan: A Historical Perspective

This study explores the evolution of fiscal resource distribution in Pakistan. Pakistan is a federation comprising four provinces, federally-administered areas, and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Being a central type of government, most of the revenues are collected by the centre and then redistributed vertically between the federal and the provincial governments, and horizontally among the provinces. Provinces then also redistribute revenues among lower tiers of the government, through a revenue-sharing formula. A thorough look at the history indicates that this process has been complex and has a far-reaching impact. A less systematic approach has been adopted to decentralise the financial matters. Over time, the divisible pool has expanded due to heavy reliance on indirect taxes as well as improvement in the collection. Population is the sole distribution criteria, adopted in all NFC awards from the divisible pool. This has raised friction among the provinces, necessitating inclusion of other potential variables evolved from international best practices. In addition to that, absence of technical experts and permanency of the NFC is another impediment. The NFC is supposed to provide the framework for amicable distribution of resources between the federal and the provincial governments for the joint goal of development and prosperity.NFC, Pakistan, Fiscal Federalism, Rule and Discretion, Political Economy, Population, Subventions, Doing the Business of Government

National Finance Commission Awards in Pakistan: A Historical Perspective

This study explores the evolution of fiscal resource distribution in Pakistan. Pakistan is a federation comprising four provinces, federallyadministered areas, and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Being a central type of government, most of the revenues are collected by the centre and then redistributed vertically between the federal and the provincial governments, and horizontally among the provinces. Provinces then also redistribute revenues among lower tiers of the government, through a revenue-sharing formula. A thorough look at the history indicates that this process has been complex and has a far-reaching impact. A less systematic approach has been adopted to decentralise the financial matters. Over time, the divisible pool has expanded due to heavy reliance on indirect taxes as well as improvement in the collection. Population is the sole distribution criteria, adopted in all NFC awards from the divisible pool. This has raised friction among the provinces, necessitating inclusion of other potential variables evolved from international best practices. In addition to that, absence of technical experts and permanency of the NFC is another impediment. The NFC is supposed to provide the framework for amicable distribution of resources between the federal and the provincial governments for the joint goal of development and prosperity.NFC; Pakistan; Fiscal Federalism; Rule and Discretion; Political Economy; Population; Subventions; Doing the Business of Government