Thinking about a charter of economy
The economy is a way of creating and distributing wealth and opportunities and is closely linked with the wellbeing of the people. The system of how the economy is organized…
Price stabilisation and extent of tight monetary policy
‘Today American policymakers face a stark choice. Either, they can fight inflation by continuing to hike interest rates to generate unemployment and bring down aggregate demand. Or, they can employ a surgical…
Manufacturing a policy
The eagerness of the US to start, provoke or engage in wars is well known but what is not commonly known or understood are the reasons. The Russian aggression in…
Saudi Arabia walks oil policy tightrope between Biden and Putin
Saudi Arabia’s push for swifter oil production hikes by OPEC+, which were agreed in June, involved behind-the-scenes diplomacy to ensure Russia backed the move that followed US appeals for more…
Public policy and human behaviour
Trouble comes in threes. Extreme measures produce extreme behavior. Fear and panic are breeding grounds of reactivity. These phrases all seem to be true for today’s world. Coronavirus may have…
Economic policy choices beyond immediate crisis — III
The part-II of this series highlighted limits of monetary policy and the need for fiscal policy to take the main load of regenerating growth in the economy as the multiplier…
Policy differences
This is the second of a two-part series on little change in policy in spite of different socio-economic manifestoes representing different economic ideologies of political parties/military dictators. Prime Minister Imran…
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…
Is economic thinking changing for the better?
Pakistan is currently on its twenty third International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and faces the most stringent conditions relating to the power and tax sectors that it has ever faced…
Gas allocation policy
Pakistan’s gas allocation policy caters to winning votes rather than what is right for its economy or bringing its population out of poverty. Table 1 shows the efficiencies possible in…
