Rebuilding the state
The inauguration of Justice Qazi Faez Isa as the new chief justice of Pakistan has brought hope to some – and inevitably dismay to others. It is true that Chief…
Strike against inequality
This past Thursday night, just hours before the expiration of the United Auto Workers contract with Detroit’s Big Three, UAW president Shawn Fain had plenty on his mind. Most of…
Beyond macroeconomics
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) epitomizes a global economic paradigm rooted in inequality with little emphasis on inclusiveness. Advocates of this model argue that some degree of inequality is essential,…
Economic pragmatism vs ideological rigidity
Compare last week’s newspaper headlines with those from the 1990s and it would seem that little has changed in Pakistan’s economic circumstances. Currently, as in the 1990s, the country is…
Post-pandemic, world facing gloomy stew of debt, trade wars and poor
Record levels of government debt, geopolitical tensions that threaten to split the global trading system, and the likely persistence of weak productivity gains may saddle the world with a slow-growth…
Trade conundrum: who is at fault?
The July 2023 trade data indicates an improvement in the trade deficit – from negative 1.863 billion dollars to negative 1.607 billion dollars, a positive trend that was touted by…
Caretakers must ensure fiscal discipline
The last official document on the state of the economy prior to the end of the tenure of the eleven-party coalition government was uploaded on the Finance Division website on…
A mission-oriented industrial policy
‘While it is generally true that mainstream economists have responded to industrial policy with knee-jerk hostility since at least the 1970s, things have been changing fast, owing to new academic…
Biden’s China rhetoric
In an astonishing display of rhetorical hubris, US President Joe Biden recently unleashed a fusillade of criticism aimed squarely at China, dubbing it a “ticking time bomb” during a political…
Build back the blocks
We have probably all seen a child, perhaps in a tantrum or by accident, knock over a pile of blocks in our lifetime. Today, Pakistan resembles the chaos left behind…
