The Impact of Socio-economic Factors on Fertility Behaviour: A Cross-country Analysis

International comparisons of fertility behaviour are based on two crucial assumptions. First, it is assumed that the response of fertility rates to socio-economic factors is similar across different age-cohorts of female population in the reproductive age-group. Second, it is assumed that country-specific effects do not influence the parameter estimates of the fertility model. Recent availability of cross-country data for a number of years allows us to pool data for more than 100 countries for the period 1955–1985 and estimate the fertility model. The results show that the impact of socio-economic factors differs across different age-cohorts; particularly, the negative impact of improvements in female status on the fertility rates is higher among the younger age-cohorts. Similarly, our results show that cross-country differences affect fertility rates significantly. However, the differences tend to diminish as countries become more developed. These results indicate that not only cross-country differences but also the changes in age-composition of female population should be taken into account in formulating the policies to control fertility and population growth. Furthermore, improvements in female literacy turn out to be the most effective tool to control population growth.

Energy and Economic Growth in Pakistan

Recent rise in energy prices, shrinking existing resources, and the search for alternative sources of energy and energy conservation technologies have brought into focus the issue of causality between energy use and economic growth. The results of this study show that energy expansion is expected to lead to higher growth and its shortage may retard the growth process. The impact of all sources of energy on economic growth is not the same. The impact of electricity and petroleum products as well as that of electricity only is high and statistically significant. However, the reverse causality is critical for the petroleum products.Economic Growth

A Decomposition of Male-Female Earnings Differentials

The participation of women in paid economic activities has increased in almost all the countries and Pakistan is no exception.1 However, the quantitative increase in female participation in market production has neither led to qualitative improvements in their lives nor to equality of opportunity and treatment between males and females at home and in the labour market. In emerging global economic scenario, the role of females in a country’s economic development is becoming critical. This will be a major issue in the next century, as welfare of a society can not be improved unless specific measures are undertaken to improve the socio-economic status of women. In this study we intend to examine the role of females in labour market, particularly their earnings relative to the earnings of males.

Analysis of Non-conventional Indicators of Gender Relations: Evidence from Pakistan

Since 1980 many developing countries have adopted two major macroeconomic strategies: Stabilisation and Structural Adjustment. A generally held view regarding the impact of these macroeconomic strategies is that it led to unemployment, low investment, decline in real wages, capital flight, rise in inequality and poverty. All these resulted in deterioration in living conditions of the poor in the short run.1 In some cases, the long run benefits, if any, of these programmes are sacrificed due to the high social costs in the short run. A number of studies, examining the impact of the observed macroeconomic impact of the Structural Adjustment Policies (StAP), report mixed impact on women. For example, on the one hand, Khan (1999) found an increasing trend in feminisation of agricultural labour2, and feminisation of poverty3 while Brown (1992), on the other hand, reports employment as a key factor in determining women’s empowerment and argues that some aspects of economic reforms hold for improvement in the long-run. The argument is based on the assumption that greater economic role for women offers protection and that employment itself mitigates against domestic violence. However, the overall effect of structural adjustment is difficult to measure as it varies across countries, across sectors, and across individuals within a household.

The Impact of Tariff Reforms on Income Distribution in Pakistan: A CGE-based Analysis

Like most developing countries, Pakistan has undertaken drastic economic policy reforms since the mid-1980s. Under these structural reforms there is a general shift away from quantitative restrictions and price controls towards liberalisation and privatisation. The empirical studies1 analysing the impact of the reforms report mixed results. Economy wide framework like Computable General Equilibrium (CGE), based on the social accounting matrix, is well suited to analysing the effect of these structural reforms. The CGE models are developed to capture the medium to long-run effects through which adjustment programmes affect income distribution. These models are often used to evaluate the effects of trade and tax policies on income distribution in developing countries. There are three interacting channels through which these adjustment policies affect income distribution, viz., the relative price effect, the asset price effect and the shift in portfolio. However, in this study, we are analysing the effect of changes in relative prices only. The first and more easily quantifiable channel is through analysis of the impact of changes in production prices following changes in tariff. For a given shock in the above mentioned policy variables, the medium to long-run distributional impact of the resulting structural adjustment is determined by the extent of relative price rigidities (fixed real wages, or mark up pricing), the extent of factor mobility (supply elasticity’s) and difference in consumption pattern across socio-economic groups. Difference in assumptions and closure rule play a very important role in market adjustment mechanism in developing countries. Simulation exercises show that assumptions about the macro economic closure and behavioural parameters matter a great deal in determining the productive and distributive effects of a shock and a country’s adjustment to the shock.

Gender Differences in Demand for Schooling

The comparison of human development indicators in Table 1 shows that Pakistan’s performance is below the average for South Asian countries and below the average for the developing countries. Furthermore, gender differences in human development are also significant within country and across countries. For example, in 1999, differences in male and female literacy rate was 24 points in Pakistan, higher then the difference in less developed countries (equalling 15 points). [See HDC (2001)]. Similarly, within Pakistan, male literacy rate increased from 35 percent in 1980-81 to 56.6 percent in 1998-99 whereas female literacy rate increased from 16 percent in 1980-81 to 32.6 percent in 1998-99. This shows that despite doubling of female literacy rate, the gap between male and female literacy rate widened from 19 percent in 1980-81 to 24 percent in 1998-99. Similarly, another indicator of human capital, i.e., the net enrolment rates at primary level exhibited a declining trend in 1990s, particularly among males. An important reason for the decline could be rise in poverty. Table 2 shows a sustained increase in net enrolment ratio with income, and the positive income effect is higher in urban areas. In rural areas, the enrolment rate increases with income but there is slight decline in female enrolment rate at the highest income level. Thus, despite rapid rise in female enrolment the gender, differences persist and income is the main factor affecting demand for education.

State of Technology and Productivity in Pakistan’s Manufacturing Industries: Some Strategic Directions to Build Technological Competence

Historically, Pakistan’s economic growth record, especially of the manufacturing sector, has been quite satisfactory. However, since the late 1980s Pakistan has been facing a slow growth of manufacturing industries, particularly of the large-scale manufacturing units. This has led some economists to express the apprehension that perhaps de-industrialisation is taking place in the country. A careful analysis of the causes of this sluggish growth suggests that one of the main contributory factors is the slow growth in total factor productivity (TFP)—the best overall measure of competitiveness. What has caused this productivity slow-down? For Pakistan there is clear evidence of a relationship between the growth in total factor productivity and the ailing S & T apparatus. The results presented in the study also lend support to the hypothesis that knowledge capital, human capital, openness, and government policies are crucial determinants of total factor productivity growth. Given a liberal economic environment in the country, which is essential to improve efficiency and productivity, the paper offers four strategic directions in order to improve the status of the S & T system in Pakistan (1) augment the public sector S & T apparatus with the private sector funding and oversight; (2) take measures to upgrade scientific research institutions to the international standard; (3) streamline the technology creation, absorption, and diffusion system; and (4) enhance the demand for S & T in industries. These strategic directions are designed in such a manner that they work together towards a series of phased reforms, which can create incentives and market-based mechanisms to enhance the technology system without relying on a radical shift in the governance element of the bureaucracy.

The Impact of Changes in Exchange Rate on Prices: A Case Study of Pakistan

Rapid changes in prices are of concern in almost all countries since the 1970s. However, the issue is of serious concern in developing countries where imported inflation is seen to be driving domestic inflation resulting in limited effectiveness of domestic policies to control inflation. Like most developing countries, in Pakistan also, the domestic price level started rising from the mid-1970s. The exchange rate started depreciating continuously from the early 1980s.1 Continuous devaluation of currency and inflation in the 1980s seems to suggest a correlation between the two variables. The empirical studies, like Rana and Dowling (1983) suggest that foreign inflation was the most significant factor in explaining changes in the domestic price level in nine Asian less developed countries during 1973–79. This suggests that, while, these countries could do little to control inflation, the policies of other countries, particularly their major trading partners, had a significant impact on their domestic prices. A simultaneous relationship between the inflation rate and the exchange rate changes is viewed by certain researchers to exist. [Cooper (1971) and Krugman and Taylor (1978).] In most of the developing countries flexibility of exchange rate is favoured on the ground that it depoliticises the problem of devaluation and creates less disruption in the economy. In the empirical literature, the exchange rate regimes are also linked to domestic prices, trade patterns and current account balance.

Debt and Economic Growth in South Asia

After 1980s, in most developing countries, the rate of debt accumulation and increase in debt servicing are highlighted as major factors affecting the growth rate of output. Most of these countries lost their competitiveness in the international market mainly as a result of insufficient exchange rate adjustments. In addition, the weakening of terms of trade, economic mismanagement and crisis of governance also lowered growth rates in the developing countries. The downward pressure was larger in the countries facing higher debt burden as these countries faced higher interest rates, decline in the external resource inflow, lower export earnings, lower domestic output and lower imports. In case of South Asian countries, the external debt scenario has changed over time. According to World Bank (2001) Pakistan’s ranking worsened to ‘severely-indebted low income country’ from ‘moderately-indebted low income country’ in 1997, where as India’s ranking improved to ‘less indebted low income’ country from ‘moderately indebted’ in 1997. The rapid accumulation of debt, rising repayment burden and the economically and politically resource inflow or rescheduling motivated rescheduling of debt (as in case of Pakistan) has raised concerns regarding the impact of debt on the growth process of the South Asian countries. Khanobis and Bari (2001) claim that foreign resource inflow increased the resource availability and as a result it contributed to economic growth in South Asia. However, the study does not examine the effect of debt accumulation on economic growth. In this paper, given the diversity of growth experience, we examine the impact of rising debt burden on economic growth of South Asian countries.

A Decomposition of Male-Female Earnings Differentials

The participation of women in paid economic activities has increased in almost all the countries and Pakistan is no exception.1 However, the quantitative increase in female participation in market production has neither led to qualitative improvements in their lives nor to equality of opportunity and treatment between males and females at home and in the labour market. In emerging global economic scenario, the role of females in a country’s economic development is becoming critical. This will be a major issue in the next century, as welfare of a society can not be improved unless specific measures are undertaken to improve the socio-economic status of women. In this study we intend to examine the role of females in labour market, particularly their earnings relative to the earnings of males. The household data show that in 1993-94 the earning gap between males and females was 43 percent. This was lower than the 63 percent gap reported in 1979 and higher than 33.1 gap reported in 1985-86.2 These changes in male-female earnings gap raise a number of questions, including the following