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Solving Pakistan's Poverty Puzzle: Whom Should We Believe? What Should We Do?

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  • Rashid Amjad

    (International Labour Organization (ILO), Geneva.)

Abstract

Understanding Pakistan’s economic performance has never been easy. Its capacity to generate impressive rates of economic growth in the 1960s and 1980s with low levels of savings, investment and very poor human development indicators confounded its critics. Indeed during the overall period 1960–1990 Pakistan’s growth performance would place it in the top ten countries in the world. This made an eminent economist Professor Richard Eckaus remark, “Pakistan is a puzzle, a miracle of levitation. With one of the lowest domestic savings rate in Asia, its economy has performed quite creditably. Since we do not believe in miracles, we have to wonder whether the capital inflows that have sustained this growth will last”.1 Unfortunately they did not. Pakistan’s growth rate in the 1990s came tumbling down, the result of a number of factors of which a decline in capital inflows also played a significant part. If Pakistan’s growth performance has been in part difficult to justify then understanding or explaining changes and wide fluctuations in its poverty levels has posed even a more challenging task. Pakistan has witnessed over the last three decades periods of high economic growth, as in the 1960s, accompanied with increasing poverty levels, periods of low economic growth, as in the 1970s, accompanied by reductions in poverty levels, periods of high economic growth leading to a decline in poverty as in the 1980s and periods of low economic growth as in the 1990s accompanied by as we shall see by increasing poverty levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Rashid Amjad, 2003. "Solving Pakistan's Poverty Puzzle: Whom Should We Believe? What Should We Do?," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 42(4), pages 375-393.
  • Handle: RePEc:pid:journl:v:42:y:2003:i:4:p:375-393
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    File URL: http://www.pide.org.pk/pdf/PDR/2003/Volume4/375-393.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. A. R. Kemal, 2003. "Structural Adjustment and Poverty in Pakistan," MIMAP Technical Paper Series 2003:14, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    2. Talat Anwar & Sarfraz K. Qureshi, 2002. "Trends in Absolute Poverty in Pakistan: 1990-91 and 2001," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 41(4), pages 859-878.
    3. World Bank, 2003. "World Development Indicators 2003," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13920.
    4. Rashid Amjad & A.R. Kemal, 1997. "Macroeconomic Policies and their Impact on Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 39-68.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sadia Hussain & Shafei Moiz Hali & Riaz Ahmad & Sumera Iqbal & Hamza Iftikhar, 2021. "Fiscal decentralization and poverty alleviation: A case study of Pakistan," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(2), pages 139-154, June.
    2. Rashid Amjad, 2005. "Pakistan's Poverty Reduction Strategy: Why Employment Matters," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 10(Special E), pages 144-178, September.
    3. Inayat Ullah Mangla, 2011. "Reconstructing the Performance of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Another Paradigm," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 16(Special E), pages 30-70, September.
    4. repec:ilo:ilowps:487475 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. G. M. Arif, 2004. "Child Health and Poverty in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 43(3), pages 211-238.
    6. Nawaz A. Hakro & Wadho Waqar Ahmed, 2006. "IMF Stabilization Programs, Policy Conduct and Macroeconomic Outcomes: A Case Study of Pakistan," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 11(1), pages 35-62, Jan-Jun.
    7. M. Ashraf Janjua, 2005. "Money Supply, Inflation and Economic Growth: Issues in Monetary Management in Pakistan," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 10(Special E), pages 72-105, September.
    8. Abdul Saboor & Zakir Hussain, 2005. "The Dynamics of Rural Poverty in Pakistan: A Time Series Analysis," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, Jan-Jun.
    9. Amjad, Rashid, 2006. "Employment strategies and labor market policies: interlinkages with macro and sectoral policies," MPRA Paper 39177, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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