A tight macroeconomic policy stance and its repercussions
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is its latest monetary policy statement (MPS) increased policy rate by 150 basis points to 8.75 per cent, stating, among other things, that ‘risks related…
The cost of confused macroeconomic policy
It seems to be a chicken and egg situation: inflation will fall first; only then will State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) lower its policy rate, or the policy rate will…
Towards industrial policy 2.0: Part – V
Infrastructure: Pakistan’s unending energy crisis and high-end user costs have enormously damaged industrial growth and diversification, particularly the export sector.The present model of single buyer-single seller is the root cause…
Towards industrial policy 2.0: Part – IV
The end purpose of an industrial policy for Pakistan should be to achieve competitiveness through higher productivity which brings greater profits for entrepreneurs, higher wages and better working conditions for…
Towards industrial policy 2.0: Part – III
Instead of choosing the winners and losers which was the case with the industrial policy 1.0, the thrust of the new policy that is still evolving is to align the…
Towards industrial policy 2.0: Part – I
Recent developments in the Western countries have reopened the discourse on the need for an industrial policy. Pakistan, which has gone through deindustrialization in the last few decades, has to…
Both IMF, govt need serious policy path correction
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its recently-released flagship report ‘World Economic Outlook [WEO] update: inflation peaking amid low growth’ indicated that while the economic growth prospects globally had improved…
Ending the assault of austerity and procyclical policy stance
‘The world is confronting multiple, compounding crises, from Covid-19, energy, inflation, debt, and climate shocks to unaffordable living costs and political instability. The need for ambitious action cannot be greater.…
IMF policy needs a serious rethink
The first major jolt to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) thinking regarding pursuing austerity policy came in the inability of austerity policy to neither allow eurozone area to reach needed…
Lack of prudent macroeconomic policies
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design” — Friedrich von Hayek Pakistan is facing a…
