False signals
THE prime minister has praised his economic team for an ‘economic turnaround’ that comprises declines in the current account and fiscal deficits and increases in FDI and remittances. All these are misleading indicators but one is especially egregious and contradictory. Why is the increase in remittances considered part of the […]
Performance and challenge
Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2019 IN an article titled ‘Boom or bust’ published in Dawn two years ago, I had posed the question whether the then government would behave any differently from its predecessors and, while hoping it would, answered that, “as in the past, we will fill up[…]
A low value-added export trap
Published in The Express Tribune, June 22nd, 2019. While there has been much debate about the strengths and weaknesses of Pakistan’s economy, the one thing that no observer of the economy can deny is its predictability. A balance-of-payments crisis forced the government to enter into an IMF stabilisation package a[…]
A turning point
Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2019. ECONOMIC history is a fascinating subject, and at its exciting best when one tries to explain to graduate students why Britain was the first country to have undergone the Industrial Revolution, or why Japan was the first non-Western country to do so — or[…]
