Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Was this content written or created while at IBA?

Yes

Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

2-11-2010

Author Affiliation

  • Dr. Ishrat Husain is Dean and Director at Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

Conference Name

SABER/EABER Conference

Conference Location

Canberra

Conference Dates

February 11-12, 2010

Series

Faculty Research - Book Chapters and Conference Papers

First Page

1

Last Page

10

Keywords

Structural reforms, Comparative economic development, Governance and policy implementation, India–Pakistan economic relations

Abstract / Description

China, India and Brazil are three emerging countries in different parts of the globe with differences in culture, history and politics but have done extremely well in terms of economic development in the recent years. Pakistan on the other hand with similar culture, institutions and history as India but different political evolution has not done so well on a comparable basis. The literature on the determinants of economic development would attribute this divergence to the content of structural policy reform packages (Washington Consensus vs State Interventions) or on the phasing, timing and sequencing of reforms or on institutional and governance issues in the implementation of reforms. Case studies on the newly industrializing economies and later the East Asian Economies have interpreted the success of these economies from this prism of analysis and perspective. World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been arguing that policies such as Deregulation, Liberalization, Trade openness, Fiscal Prudence and Privatization have led to the East Asian miracle. A number of other scholars have attributed the success of East Asian countries to State interventions, industrial policy and protection. Political economy literature has focused on identifying and dealing with the major drivers of resistance to these reforms and the factors responsible for the maintenance of status quo ante. Rent seeking and self interest maximization by groups affected adversely by the reforms have emerged as among the main reasons for the non-implementation or the failure in the long term. Although all of these issues remain critical recent experience of Pakistan and India in implementing similar if not identical policy reforms since 1991 provide a natural experiment to discern the additional factors that have led to solid results in one case and disappointing in the other.

Download

Share

COinS