Two-Photon Effects in Lepton-AntiLepton Pair Photoproduction from a Nucleon Target using Real Photons

We consider the production of a lepton-antilepton pair by real photons off a hadronic target. The interference of one and two photon exchange amplitudes leads to a charge asymmetry term that may be calculated explicitly in the large-t limit in terms of hadronic distribution amplitudes. A rather compact expression emerges for the leading order asymmetry at fixed angle in the centre-of-mass of the lepton pair. The magnitude appears sizeable and is approximately independent of the pair mass in the asymptotic limit.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Title changed, references adde

Prospects of Economic Integration among the ECO Countries

Promotion of Intra-regional trade is the most important economic justification for regional economic blocs. This paper examines such prospects in the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) region, a grouping of ex-RCD and Central Asian States. It is shown that the progress is extremely slow and the time table fixed for the implementation of the ECO Trade Agreement is ambitious, given the lukewarm will to cooperate, the unsettled state of affairs in Afghanistan, and the dirigistic legacy of central planning in the Central Asian States.regional Cooperation, Economic Integration

The Debt of the Nation

The debt of the nation comprises two parts, the external debt and the internal debt. After rapidly accumulating arrears of external debt in the post-sanctions period, Pakistan has had to seek re-scheduling of her external debt as part of a financing and reform package negotiated with the IMF. While re-scheduling has not been sought for the first time, the rising burden of this debt has generated a serious debate for the first time. In the heat of this debate, the heavier burden of the costlier internal debt has been nearly ignored. Although this paper takes account of the totality of the debt towards the end, its main focus is on the problem of external debt for reasons not only of its immediacy but the prospects of forced self-reliance raised by the financial and economic fall-out of the nuclear explosions of May 1998. Section II looks for the data sources and discovers that there are as many sizes of the debt as there are sources. In its latest report, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) characterises the economy as “highly indebted” in terms of its external debt, while the latest Economic Survey (ES) does not consider the external debt as large as it appears. Section III analyses these claims in terms of the internationally recognised debt burden indicators. In Section IV, attention is devoted to debt sustainability criteria. Section V of the paper examines the question as to how debt, which also shows access to capital required for economic growth, was allowed to become a burden over time. The last Section presents main conclusions and suggests an agenda for action.

Pakistan’s Debt Problem: Its Changing Nature and Growing Gravity

It has been evident for some time that Pakistan’s debt burden is extremely onerous. The danger of external debt default first emerged in 1996 towards the end of the second Benazir government. Following the nuclear explosions by first India and then Pakistan and the subsequent imposition of economic sanctions by the Western countries in mid-1998, Pakistan froze the foreign currency deposits, a major source of balance of payments financing in recent years, and went into a technical default on external debt. Following a fresh agreement with the IMF in January 1999, Paris and London Clubs provided substantial debt relief in the form of rescheduling of debt payments due in 1998-99, 1999-2000 and the first half of 2000-1. Despite debt relief, the burden of external debt remains extremely heavy and the danger of default has not disappeared. In any case, the access to international financial markets has been greatly curtailed, if not eliminated, especially because The Paris Club has applied the ‘comparability of treatment’ to claims of private sector investors. On the domestic side, the heavy burden of servicing public debt has made the much needed fiscal adjustment both difficult and disorderly. The rise in interest payments from 2.2 percent of GDP in 1979-80 to 4.9 percent in 1988-89 and to the peak of 7.3 percent in 1998-99 made reductions in fiscal deficit hard to achieve. As interest payments now account for over 45 percent of government revenues, the fiscal deficit reduction has come mainly at the cost of development spending. Clearly the debt overhang is a major factor in the decline in the investment rate to 15 percent of GDP in 1998-99 and 1999-2000, the lowest level in more than two decades. Unless the debt burden can be brought down to more manageable levels, macro-economic management will remain problematical and growth prospects will remain clouded.

Learning from the Past: A Fifty-year Perspective on Pakistan's Development

In some ways, Pakistan’s economic growth since 1947 has been remarkable. The country’s economic viability was considered, in some quarters,1 in serious doubt at its emergence, but it has managed, despite a quadrupling of the population, to bring about significant improvement in the average living standards. Per capita GNP growth, on average around 2 percent per annum over a long stretch of nearly fifty years, has been the best among countries of the subcontinent. This growth has meant an increase in average income of about 150 percent over 1950–96. But Pakistan, like many other developing countries, has not been able to narrow the gap between itself and rich industrial nations which have grown faster on a per head basis. Also, Pakistan has lost substantial economic ground to the rapidly growing economies of East Asia notably China, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In 1960, South Korea’s per capita income was only marginally ahead of Pakistan’s. In the short period of one generation, Korea had an income level which on purchasing power parity basis five times that of Pakistan in 1995. On the same basis, Thailand and Malaysia enjoyed a per capita income advantage of 200 to 300 percent over Pakistan.

Pakistan at the Threshold of the 21st Century: How to Shape a Better Economic Future?

Pakistan has been facing a deep-seated economic and financial crisis and seemingly intractable governance issues for the last few years. Factors such as international sanctions and global economic slowdown, which have worsened Pakistan’s economic difficulties, were beyond Pakistan’s control. But by and large, the country’s economic and financial difficulties are the result of economic mismanagement in key areas over long periods. Bad governance, as reflected in widespread corruption and poor delivery of public services, and especially poor law and order have given birth to a crisis of confidence in the state. It is argued here that despite this scenario, a long and arduous process of building institutions, setting the policies right, and enforcing a rule-based governance stressing both merit and accountability can put Pakistan back on the road to shared prosperity. Resolving financial problems, accelerating demographic transition, exploiting tremendous agricultural potential, improving both availability and quality of education, increasing competitiveness and bringing about structural change in exports and industry, and reforming the government are crucial policy actions that can help shape a better future for the country and end the economic drift.