This article discusses how the 7th National Finance Commission award and the 18th Amendment to the Constitution have strengthened the autonomy of the federating units in Pakistan. The former has empowered the provinces by increasing their access to financial resources, but there is the danger that it may increase the consolidated fiscal deficit unless both the federal and provincial governments increase their fiscal efforts and rationalize their expenditures. The 18th Amendment has the potential to change the structure of governance, but has been implemented in such a way that effective decentralization has been at least partially rolled back. For devolution to work in Pakistan, financing and the delivery of devolved services will have to be more effectively organized and managed.
KEYWORDS: Fiscal, devolution, 18th amendment, Pakistan.
JEL: O16.

This article describes the local government system established in the 2001 Devolution Plan and its evolution over the period 2002-07, with a focus on two essential public services, education and health. We believe that the devolution of service delivery functions, delegation of financial powers, decentralization of authority, and deconcentration of executive powers, can, together, lead to better accountability of results and, hence, to improved public service delivery to the poor and marginalized. The Devolution Plan made inroads toward these goals, particularly in education, but their achievement was incomplete due to a number of factors, among those incomplete fiscal decentralization, limited targeting of backward areas, and centralizing tendencies of the provincial departments and civil service. Recommendations are offered on how to further develop the local government system more generally, with an eye towards increasing accountability and improving coordination both across local governments and between tiers. For this, complementary reforms to simplify business processes and revamp human resource management policies are needed; introducing a district level civil service is among the suggested changes. The article concludes with detailed recommendations on improving the decentralized delivery of education and health services.
KEYWORDS: Devolution, decentralization, service delivery, health, education.
JEL: H75.

The almost unanimous passage of a landmark consensus constitutional amendment—the 18th Constitutional Amendment—restored Pakistan’s constitution to its original intent of a decentralized federation of provinces as envisaged in the 1956 (two provinces) and 1973 (four provinces) constitutions. This article takes a closer look at the provisions of this amendment and highlights both the potentials and pitfalls of the new constitutional order for good governance in Pakistan. It argues that the amendment represents a step forward but encompasses several missteps in creating a harmonious political and economic union. The 18th Amendment has reinforced an outmoded “pot-belly” model (federalism of provinces) whereas an “hourglass” (federalism of local governments) model is more suited to Pakistan‘s circumstances. Major fundamental reforms are needed that right-size the federal and provincial governments, strengthen local governance, enforce fiscal discipline and citizen-based accountability for service delivery performance on all orders of government, dismantle provincial barriers to factor mobility and internal trade, and restrain beggar-thy-neighbor policies and unaccountable governance by “empowered provinces” to mitigate the unintended adverse consequences of the 18th amendment for nation building and citizenship in Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Governance, fiscal federalism, decentralization, state and local governance, nation and province-building, constitutional division of powers, intergovernmental fiscal relations.
JEL: I31, H10, H11, H83, O10.

This paper looks at the case of Pakistan’s decentralization reform of 2001–09 and its impact on civil service management. A key point made in this paper is that the relationship between organizational change and civil service is, by no means, unidirectional. The issues are viewed in the context of decentralization, its opportunities, and outcomes for efficiency and equity. We then evaluate whether administrative decentralization has enhanced or diminished the potential for political and fiscal decentralization for service delivery in Pakistan.
KEYWORDS: Decentralization, government, civil servant, Pakistan.
JEL: H10.

This study investigates the determinants of the various components of debt—short- and long-term debt and their categories—in the case of nonfinancial listed firms in Pakistan for the period 2008–10. We make a significant distinction between these determinants depending on the components of debt issued: long-term or short-term forms of debt. Our results show that large firms are more likely to have access to long-term debt borrowing than small firms and that, due to supply constraints, small firms resort to short-term forms of debt. Firms with higher potential for growth prefer using less long-term debt as well as debt with fewer restrictive arrangements in order to become more financially flexible. Firms with sufficient fixed assets can generate external finance more easily and at lower cost by using these assets as collateral, which supports the tradeoff theory. Firms generating high levels of profit, however, may choose to finance their investments using internal resources rather than by raising debt finance, which conforms to the pecking order theory. Our results also confirm the presence of the inertia effect and industry-specific effects, and are robust to alternative estimation techniques.
KEYWORDS: Long-term debt, short-term debt, growth, firm size, profitability, Pakistan.
JEL: F23, G15, G32.

This study uses panel data on 75 textile firms for the period 2000–09 to examine the consequences of an easy credit policy followed by high gearing, increased financing costs, and other determinants of corporate profitability. Five out of nine explanatory variables—including gearing, financing costs, inflation, tax provisions, and the industry’s capacity utilization ratio—have a negative impact, while the remaining four variables—working capital management, asset turnover, exports, competitiveness, and devaluation—have a positive impact on firms’ profitability.
KEYWORDS: Easy credit, energy crisis, corporate profitability, textile sector, panel data, Pakistan.
JEL: F14, L69, L78.

While the literature on economic growth provides mixed evidence on convergence across different countries and regions, a large number of studies point toward the widening income gap between rich and poor. In the development literature, a broader range of national welfare indicators beyond income per capita—health and education in particular—are considered important instruments for measuring progress in human development. This article examines education and other selective welfare indicators to determine if there has been unconditional and conditional convergence across the districts of Pakistani Punjab over the period 1961–2008. The study can be considered part of the growing literature that looks at growth theory in developing countries in the context of human capital. Thus far, few studies have examined human capital in the context of convergence, and Pakistan has not been studied in any depth up to now. The results of our empirical analysis show that over the last five decades, both unconditional and conditional convergence has taken place in literacy rates across Punjab, and that this has been accompanied by increased gender parity in educational enrolment levels and improved housing conditions.
KEYWORDS: Human capital, unconditional convergence, conditional convergence, Pakistan.
JEL: I31, R10.

The main objective of this study is to investigate how access to modern marketing channels impacts the efficiency of dairy enterprises. Using data on dairy farms in central Punjab (Sargodha), we carry out a nonparametric data envelopment analysis to measure their technical and scale efficiencies. The results show that, for the sample dairy enterprises, the mean technical efficiency under variable returns to scale was 0.89 while scale efficiency was 0.94. The results of a follow-on regression analysis support the hypothesis that the access to modern marketing channels, where payment for fresh milk is based on measured milk quality (fat content), improved efficiency. We find that efficiency is positively affected by the size of dairy operations, and negatively by the size of operational land area. Moreover, dairy enterprises with smaller herds tend to operate at a suboptimal scale, possibly due to credit and/or land constraints.
KEYWORDS: Dairy, marketing, Punjab, Pakistan.
JEL: C14, M31.

This study presents an economic analysis of experimental on-farm data on the yield effect of gypsum on groundnut production in Pakistan’s Pothwar region. The data indicates that groundnut pod yield increases significantly with the application of gypsum at 500 kg/ha for both local and improved (chakori) varieties of groundnut. The higher net benefits generate a marginal rate of return of up to 132 percent for local and 202 percent for improved varieties of groundnut. We carry out a sensitivity analysis and minimum returns analysis, and find, respectively, that the recommended application is capable of withstanding price variability and variability in yield. Since price structure changes more rapidly than technology, recommendations should be based on an analysis of returns under varying input and output prices.
KEYWORDS: Groundnut, gypsum, economic analysis, rate of return, Pakistan.
JEL: Q19.

Controlling prices is one of the biggest tasks that macroeconomic policymakers face. The objective of this study is to analyze the demand- and supply-side factors that affect food prices in Pakistan. We analyze their long-run relationship using an autoregressive distributed lag model for the period 1970–2010. Our results indicate that that the most significant variable affecting food prices in both the long and short run is money supply. We also find that subsidies can help reduce food prices in the long run but that their impact is very small. Increases in world food prices pressurize the domestic market in the absence of imports, which cause domestic food prices to rise. If, however, we import food crops at higher international prices, this can generate imported inflation. The error correction is statistically significant and shows that market forces play an active role in restoring the long-run equilibrium.
KEYWORDS: Food prices, ARDL estimation, Pakistan.
JEL: Q11, E64.